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BISHOP  GRISWOLD 


SOLDIER  AND  SERVANT  SERIES 


Alexander  Viets  Griswold 

and  the 

Eastern  Diocese 

By  Julia  C.  Emery 
Childhood  and  Youth  in  Simsbuty 


CHURCH  MISSIONS  PUBLISHING  CO. 

45  CHURCH  STREET.  HARTFORD,  CONN. 


See  "Life  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Alexander  Viets  Griswold,  D.D.  Bishop 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  Eastern  Diocese,"  by  John  S. 
Stone,  D.D.  Published  by  Hopkins,  Bridgman  &  Co.,  Northampton, 
1854.  Also  "A  History  of  the  Eastern  Diocese,"  by  Calvin  R.  Batch- 
elder.  Published  by  Church  Printers,  Claremont,  N.  H.,  1876.  These 
volumes  may  be  borrowed  from  the  Library  at  the  Church  Missions 
House,  281  Fourth  Ave.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 


ALEXANDER  VIETS  GRISWOLD 

AND    THE 

EASTERN  DIOCESE 
By  Julia  C.  Emery 

CHILDHOOD   AND   YOUTH   IN    SIMSBURY 

In  1633  William  Holmes  packed  the  framework  of  his 
house  on  board  a  boat  and  sailed  with  it  from  Plymouth  around 
Cape  Cod,  past  Narragansett  Bay  and  up  the  Connecticut 
River.  There,  at  a  point  near  the  entrance  of  the  Farmington, 
he  set  up  his  home  anew  —  the  first  house  in  the  Connecticut 
colony.  Two  years  later,  in  1635,  sixty  men,  women  and 
children,  members  of  the  Rev.  John  Wareham's  congregation 
in  Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  made  their  hard  and  tedious 
journey  overland  through  the  Connecticut  wilds  and  planted 
at  Windsor  the  first  white  settlement  of  the  colony.  "It  was 
an  honorable  company,"  the  old  histories  say,  and  certainly 
one  full  of  intelligence  and  decision;  for  in  1638  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Windsor,  Hartford  and  Wethersfield  drew  up  "the 
oldest  truly  political  constitution  in  America,"  known  as  "the 
Fundamental  Orders  of  Connecticut." 

By  1640  Mr.  Wareham  had  followed  his  pilgrim  flock  to 
Windsor  and  had  settled  as  first  pastor  of  the  congregation 
there,  and  among  that  congregation  was  an  Edward  Griswold 
whose  descendant,  Samuel,  removed  from  Windsor  to  Simsbury 
and  bought  a  farm  of  500  acres.  There,  on  a  beautiful  height 
sloping  to  a  point  in  a  bend  of  the  Farmington  River,  he  built 
his  house,  backed  by  hilly  woodlands  and  looking  across  acres 
of  rich  meadows  shaded  by  graceful  elms  to  "this  most  lovely 
stream  just  where  it  plunges  into  its  wild  mountain  pass." 

Upon  Samuel's  death  this  choice  farm  came  into  the  pos- 
session of  his  son  Elisha,  and  became  the  home  of  his  family 
of  eight  children,  among  the  younger  of  whom  was  Alexander 
Viets  Griswold,  the  subject  of  this  sketch. 

*  "The  first  written  Constitution  known  to  history  that  created  a 
government":     Fisher's  Beginnings  of  New  England,  p.  127. 


4  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

The  name  Alexander  Victs  came  from  the  mother's  side  of 
the  family,  and  takes  us  back  again  to  1634  when  Dutch  colon- 
ists from  New  York  disputed  the  Massachusetts  settlement  and 
were  defeated  in  their  attempts  to  share  it  by  order  and  action 
of  the  British  parliament.  The  fame  of  the  goodly  country 
did  not  pass,  however.  When,  a  century  later,  copper  mines 
were  discovered  in  Simsbury,  Dr.  i\lexander  Viets  threw  up  his 
profitable  practice  in  New  York,  disposed  of  his  property  there, 
and  bought  the  tract  in  which  the  mines  lay.  The  venture 
failed.  Dr.  Viets  lost  everything,  resumed  the  practice  of  his 
profession  and  died  poor.  He  left  a  son  John,  however,  as  enter- 
prising and  more  prosperous,  who,  notwithstanding  her  parents' 
disapproval  because  of  his  lack  of  means,  won  "the  daughter 
of  a  respectable  neighbor"  for  his  wife,  retrieved  the  fallen  for- 
tunes of  the  family,  recovered  the  property  about  the  mines, 
and  left  a  valuable  farm  to  each  of  his  sons.  So,  when  his 
daughter  Eunice  married  Elisha  Griswold,  "two  of  the  most 
considerable  families  and  estates  in  the  town  were  brought 
together." 

The  Massachusetts  English  Griswolds  were  Congrega- 
tionalists,  the  New  York  Dutch  Viets,  Presbyterians.  Eunice 
had  a  brother  Roger,  a  bookish  boy,  whom  his  father  sent  to 
Yale,  designing  him  for  the  Presbyterian  ministry.  He  entered 
college  at  thirteen  —  a  mere  child  — •  but  the  experience  of  his 
few  years  there  influenced  not  his  life  only,  but  that  of  his 
family  and  friends  and,  in  years  to  come,  the  Church  life  of 
New  England.  For  while  in  college  on  a  certain  Sunday  he 
was  seized  with  the  desire  to  attend  service  at  the  "English 
Church,"  as  the  Episcopal  church  was  then  called.  With 
"great  difficulty"  he  obtained  the  president's  permission  to  g^ 
once;  but  from  that  time  he  went  again  and  again,  procured 
works  on  the  Church  from  the  college  library,  and  finally  declared 
himself  an  Episcopalian,  and  wrote  his  father,  asking  permisson 
to  become  a  clergyman  of  the  English  Church.  And,  like 
Philander  Chase  in  later  days,  he  not  only  overcame  all  opposi- 
tion, but  lived  to  see  his  father  and  all  his  family  earnest  members 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  O 

of  the  Church  to  which  they  had  been  opposed. 

After  graduating  from  college  Roger  Viets  ventured  the 
long  and  perilous  voyage  to  England,  and,  in  Priest's  Orders, 
returned,  about  1766,  to  Simsbury.  There  had  been  a  parish 
there  since  1740,  for  when,  after  Dr.  Viets'  failure,  a  Boston 
company  took  the  copper  mines,  their  superintendent,  Mr. 
James  Crozier,  "a  zealous  Episcopalian,"  interested  rich  men  in 
Boston  and  Newport  to  give  funds  for  a  church  and  glebe. 
The  Rev.  Mr.  Gibbs  came  from  Boston  as  the  first  rector,  and 
young  Roger  Viets  succeeded  him.  For  some  years  after  his 
return  he  lived  in  the  house  of  his  sister  Eunice  Griswold,  and 
it  was  in  the  year  that  he  came  there,  on  the  twenty-second  of 
April,  1766,  that  his  nephew  Alexander  Viets  was  born. 

The  child  grew  up  from  infancy  in  the  atmosphere  of  a 
religious,  intelligent  and  strictly  disciplined  home.  His  mother 
was  the  earliest  teacher  her  children  had,  and  she  was  gifted 
with  "a  wonderful  power  of  inspiring  love  for  and  fixing  the 
rudiments  of  knowledge  in  her  children's  minds."  Later,  while 
they  were  still  very  young,  she  had  a  teacher  come  to  the  house 
for  them  and  for  other  children  of  the  neighborhood,  and  later 
still  they  went  to  a  sort  of  parish  school  taught  in  the  winter 
season  by  their  uncle  Roger. 

By  the  time  Alexander  was  three  years  old  he  could  read 
fluently.  At  his  mother's  Sunday  evening  catechisings  he  was 
distinguished  above  the  other  children  by  his  love  for  and 
understanding  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  From  these  earliest 
years  he  was  passionately  fond  of  reading  and  study,  and  though 
ready  enough  to  join  his  brothers  and  sisters  at  their  play, 
would  often  slip  off  to  enjoy  some  favorite  book. 

But  this  absorbing  interest  had  many  an  interruption.  If 
Alexander  had  a  passion  for  reading,  his  mother  had  a  passion 
equally  strong  for  continuous  industry.  She  would  have  her 
children  constantly  btisy,  and  the  little  boy  had  to  help  in  the 
lighter  work  of  the  farm,  as  gathering  fruits  and  nuts  and  "riding 
horse"  at  ploughing.  Nor,  when  these  tasks  were  over,  was 
there  any  leisure.     Of  this  time  his  grandmother  said,  "Eunice 


6  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

was  too  severe.  There  was  Alexander,  as  good  and  amiable  a 
boy  as  ever  lived ;  and  yet  how  severe  she  was  with  him !  Whip- 
ping him  for  the  most  trifling  transgressions,  and  keeping  him 
every  moment  when  not  otherwise  employed,  knitting,  knitting, 
knitting!"  This  knitting  was  of  bone  lace,  "a  kind  of  netting 
composed  of  a  great  variety  of  stitches,  and  then  very  much  in 
use."  Alexander  began  upon  this  work  when  not  more  than 
five  years  old,  and  many  gloves,  caps,  capes  and  aprons  his 
little  fingers  wrought.  And  the  "transgressions"  for  which  he 
was  so  often  punished  were  the  occasional  stealing  away  for  a 
game  or  a  book. 

Soon  after  the  boy's  tenth  year  his  uncle  Roger  begged  that 
this  favorite  pupil  of  his  might  come  to  live  with  him,  and  during 
much  of  the  next  nine  years  the  parsonage  at  Simsbury  was 
his  home.  They  were  the  troublous  years  of  the  war  of  the 
Revolution,  and  during  their  course  both  Elisha  Griswold  and 
Roger  Viets,  together  with  many  other  Churchmen,  clerical 
and  lay,  differing  from  most  of  their  brethren  in  the  South, 
who  were  strongly  Patriot,  took  the  neutral  ground,  which 
marked  them  as  Tories  among  their  countrymen,  kept  Mr. 
Griswold  confined  within  the  limits  of  his  farm,  and  sent  Mr. 
Viets  to  jail  in  Hartford  for  many  months.  But  through  these 
years  Alexander  had  the  advantage  not  only  of  his  uncle's  schol- 
arly help,  but  of  the  use  of  his  library,  one  of  the  largest  and  best 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  also  of  the  parish  library  of  considerable 
value,  which  had  been  given  by  the  founders  of  the  parish. 

His  inborn  love  of  reading  thus  had  full  scope.  While 
he  farmed  the  parish  glebe  for  his  uncle,  he  would  take  his  book 
from  his  pocket  and  pore  over  it  as  he  rode  along  the  furrow. 
"I  recollect  nothing  in  my  childhood  and  youth  more  remark- 
able," he  wrote,  "than  the  rapidity  with  which  I  learned  the 
lessons  given  me.  ...  In  about  three  days  after  the 
Greek  grammar  was  first  put  into  my  hands  I  had,  without  any 
other  teaching,  written,  in  Greek  characters,  the  first  chapter 
of  St.  John's  Gospel,  interlined  with  a  literal  and  verbal  trans- 
lation into  Latin."     Not  only  was  his  progress  in  Latin  and 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  7 

Greek  remarkable,  but  he  highly  distinguished  himself  in  mathe- 
matics also.  He  read  everything  within  reach,  and  when  his 
days  were  crowded  with  toil,  from  a  very  early  age  he  would  pass 
the  great  part  of  the  night  in  reading,  while  the  rest  of  the 
family  slept.  He  delighted  in  works  of  the  imagination,  and  in 
plays.  When  seven  years  old,  in  an  exhibition  among  the 
neighborhood  children,  he  took  the  part  of  the  page  in  "Fair 
Rosamond,"  and  when  fifteen,  that  of  Zanga  in  Dr.  Young's 
"Revenge,"  to  the  delight  of  the  Simsbury  audience  who  declared 
that  no  actor  in  the  American  Company,  then  performing  in 
Hartford,  could  compare  with  him.  Also,  in  his  later  boyhood, 
he  wrote  many  a  verse  whose  playful  sarcasm  reflected  upon 
his  school  companions. 

In  1785  came  changes  which  cut  short  all  prospect  of  future 
school  or  college  training.  The  many  taxes  and  fines  of  the 
years  of  war  had  so  straitened  his  father  that  he  could  not  give 
his  son  a  full  college  course,  and  when,  later,  Alexander  might 
have  entered  the  Senior  class,  other  circumstances  had  inter- 
vened. The  times  no  doubt  had  dealt  hardly  also  with  the 
Church's  work  in  Simsbury.  In  1774  the  parish  had  stood 
third  in  the  State,  in  the  number  of  its  members,  Newtown 
having  1084,  New  Haven  942,  and  Simsbury  914;  but  now 
after  the  conclusion  of  peace  when  the  Society  for  the  Propaga- 
tion of  the  Gospel  offered  its  missionaries  continued  and  in- 
creased stipends  if  they  would  take  work  in  the  British  domin- 
ions, Mr.  Viets  was  among  those  who  accepted  the  offer,  taking 
a  parish  in  Digby,  Nova  Scotia.  He  could  not  bear  to  leave 
behind  the  nephew  to  whom  he  was  so  tenderly  attached,  and 
begged  him  to  accompany  him.  Alexander  was  only  nineteen 
years  of  age,  but  already  he  had  engaged  himself  to  Elizabeth 
Mitchelson,  a  girl  of  sixteen,  the  daughter  of  one  of  his  neigh- 
bors. There  were  many  delays  and  indecisions,  but  finally  all 
idea  of  college  was  abandoned,  the  marriage  took  place  in  the 
latter  part  of  1785,  and  it  was  settled  that  the  young  couple 
should  accompany  the  uncle's  family  to  Digby.  In  1786  Mr. 
Viets  visited  his  new  home,  and  the  next  year  removed  thither, 


8  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

with  his  family  and  a  young  sister  of  Alexander.  But  Alex- 
ander himself  did  not  go.  His  wife's  parents  had  heard  such 
unfavorable  reports  of  the  climate  of  Nova  Scotia  as  made  them 
seriously  opposed  to  the  move,  and,  as  Alexander  had  only 
consented,  through  regard  1o  his  uncle,  to  leave  his  native  land 
and  the  pleasant  and  fertile  valleys  of  Connecticut  for  a  new 
settlement  in  a  bleak  and  unpromising  and  foreign  country, 
he  probably  with  the  greater  readiness  gave  up  the  idea.  Once, 
in  1789,  he  went  with  his  uncle  as  far  as  Boston  on  his  way  to 
Digby,  and  so  for  the  first  time  visited  the  city  in  which  his 
latest  years  were  to  be  spent. 

CHOICE    OF    PROFESSION   AND    MINISTRY    IN    LITCHFIELD    COUNTY 

With  his  marriage  and  his  uncle's  departure  from  Simsbury 
his  boyhood  closed.  At  nineteen  he  was  a  man,  with  a  man's 
responsibilities,  but  with  a  most  uncertain  outlook  upon  his 
future.  While  living  with  his  uncle,  reading  and  studying 
with  him,  going  with  him  to  visit  his  clerical  neighbors,  he  had 
naturally  thought  of  the  ministry  as  his  calling.  But  now, 
with  a  young  and  rapidly  growing  family  to  care  for,  his  first 
thought  had  to  be  given  to  their  support.  And,  as  to  his  final 
destiny,  his  rich  and  varied  gifts  were  such  as  to  draw  him 
strongly  in  different  directions.  Though  modest  and  retiring 
beyond  most  men,  he  knew  that  such  habits  of  industry  and 
economy  as  he  possessed,  if  devoted  to  business  pursuits,  must 
result  in  providing  ample  means,  and  for  a  while  his  mind  lin- 
gered on  the  possibility  of  a  business  career.  But  already  he 
felt  such  an  indifference  to  wealth,  that  its  acquisition  could 
not  really  hold  his  thoughts.  A  habit  of  arguing  and  debating 
had  given  him  the  title  of  "lawyer"  among  his  young  companions, 
and  when,  after  his  uncle's  departure,  he  joined  a  debating  club, 
his  quick  wit,  his  keen  perceptions  and  clear  judgments  led  his 
friends  to  urge  him  to  make  law  his  profession.  For  two  or  three 
years  he  gave  part  of  his  time  to  that  study,  but  the  cultivation 
of  literature  was  his  real  delight.     In  his  busiest  years  he  found 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  9 

or  made  time  for  reading,  and  he  followed  closely  the  rules  of 
Drexilius;  "1.  Begin  the  work  early  in  life.  2.  Do  it  con- 
tinually. Read  no  book  without  marking.  3.  Often  read 
over  what  you  have  written.  4.  Always  keep  in  view  the  end 
of  your  studies."  Long  years  afterwards  a  friend  wrote  of 
him,  "He  was  always  a  hard  student,  and  one  of  the  most  perfect 
and  balanced  scholars  with  whom  I  have  ever  been  acquainted. 
I  could  never  CDUsult  him  on  any  question  in  any  branch  of 
study,  without  finding  him  perfectly  acquainted  w4th  it.  In 
languages  and  in  history,  as  well  as  in  the  abstract  sciences  and 
in  theology,  he  was  fully  prepared  for  every  occasion." 

These  perplexing  questions  as  to  his  course  in  life  lay  like  an 
under  current  through  the  constant  daily  toil  of  some  ten  years, 
during  which  he  worked  a  small  farm,  which  was  his  property 
at  this  time  and  for  many  years  thereafter.  Meanwhile  parish 
affairs  and  interests  still  occupied  him.  When  twenty  years  of 
age  he  became  a  communicant,  and  was  among  those  confirmed 
by  Bishop  Seabury  on  his  first  visit  to  Simsbury.  A  Mr.  Todd 
had  succeeded  Mr.  Viets  as  rector,  and  he  often  turned  for 
counsel  and  help  to  the  young  man  who  knew  people  and  place 
so  well.  When  the  parish  was  vacant  or  the  minister  absent 
Mr.  Griswold  would  help  in  the  services,  and  he  says  of  himself, 
"My  knowledge  of  music  and  practice  of  Psalmody  —  as  there 
were  then  very  few  organs  in  thq  country  —  made  me  of  use 
both  in  teaching  and  leading  the  choir." 

Thus  it  was  not  strange  that  before  long  Mr.  Todd  and  other 
friends  began  to  urge  upon  young  Griswold  that  he  should  again 
consider  entering  the  ministry.  The  plea  was  made  just  at  a 
time  when  he  had  begun  to  think  of  "rising  in  the  world," and 
when  it  was  difficult  to  give  up  those  hopes  of  temporal  honors 
and  advancement  which  had  not  loomed  in  the  far  off  horizon 
of  his  uncle's  day. 

The  decision  cost  him  a  painful  struggle,  but  it  was  finally 
made,  and  in  June,  1794,  he  offered  himself  as  a  candidate  for 
Holy  Orders  to  the  convention  of  the  diocese  assembled  in  New 
Haven.     He   was   received,    and,    according   to   the   prevailing 


10  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

custom  in  Connecticut,  began  at  once  to  officiate  in  a  small 
parish  twelve  miles  from  his  home.  For  the  candidate  of  those 
days  was  expected  to  have  the  qualifications  —  literary,  scien- 
tific, theological,  moral  and  religious  —  of  the  deacon  of  today, 
and  was  licensed  to  preach  his  own  sermons  and  was  open  to 
election  as  minister  of  a  parish. 

That  was  an  over-full  year  between  his  reception  as  a  candi- 
date and  his  ordination  to  the  diaconate.  Mr.  Griswold  spent 
it  in  daily  work  upon  his  farm,  while  at  night  his  hearth  was  his 
seminary.  Unable  to  afford  adequate  lights,  there  he  stretched 
himself  before  the  fire,  and,  "with  his  books  before  him,  by  the 
light  of  pine  knots,  as  they  blazed  in  the  chimney  corner,  pursued 
his  studies  for  hours  after  his  wife  and  children  were  asleep." 

During  this  year  also  he  had  to  decide  where  his  first  settled 
ministerial  work  should  be.  Waterbury,  one  of  the  best  parishes 
in  the  state,  called  him,  promising  him  a  new  church  building 
and  a  larger  salary  than  was  offered  from  elsewhere.  Reading, 
in  Fairfield  County,  also  sent  a  call.  But  he  declined  both  these 
in  favor  of  the  three  parishes  of  St.  Matthew's,  East  Plymouth, 
St.  Mark's,  Harwinton,  and  Trinity,  Northfield,  in  Litchfield 
County,  which  were  nearer  to  his  home  and  the  farm  which  still 
needed  his  oversight. 

In  June,  1795,  during  the  meeting  of  diocesan  convention, 
at  Stratford,  he  was  ordered  deacon,  and  in  October  of  the  same 
year,  when  the  bishop  and  some  of  his  brother  clergy  were  with 
him  at  Plymouth  for  the  consecration  of  a  new  church,  the 
clergy  suddenly  suggested  to  the  bishop  and  to  him  that  the 
opportunity  be  taken  to  advance  him  to  the  priesthood.  So, 
without  previous  thought  or  expectation  of  such  an  event,  the 
ordination  took  place  —  a  year  and  a  half  from  the  time  when 
he  first  resolved  upon  the  work  of  the  ministry.  This  ordina- 
tion was  the  last  which  Bishop  Seabury  held. 

For  ten  years  Mr.  Griswold  served  in  Litchfield  County. 
His  salary  was  £100,  practically  $300,  one  hundred  from  each  of 
his  three  parishes.  He  had  chosen  the  work  which  offered  least 
money  and,  in  one  sense,  most  labor,  though  he  seems  to  have 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  11 

been  free  from  some  of  the  heaviest  burdens  of  a  spiritual  father, 
since  he  testifies  that  his  people  "were  mostly  religious  and  all 
comparatively  free  from  vice."  Constant  visiting,  Sunday 
services,  "preaching  lectures"  in  private  houses  during  the  week, 
funerals,  continual  horseback  riding  over  hilly  country  and  bad 
roads,  where  carriages  were  "scarce  thought  of,"  and  "the  small 
wagon,  since  so  constant  in  New  England,  had  not  come  into 
use."  would  seem  to  have  been  sufficient  to  fill  his  days.  But  to 
these  must  be  added,  in  addition  to  the  occasional  training  of  a 
young  man  for  the  ministry,  the  duties  of  a  district  school 
teacher  in  winter,  of  a  day  laborer  in  summer,  and  of  fisherman 
at  night.  One  of  his  parishioners,  who  for  five  years  lived  in  his 
house  in  Plymouth,  said  of  him,  "The  parson  and  myself  have 
often  worked  out  together  as  hired  men  in  harvest  time  at 
seventy-five  cents  per  day.  He  was  among  the  best  day  laborers 
in  town,  and  one  day's  work  of  his  was  worth  as  much  as  that  of 
two  common  men." 

This  same  person  also  said,  "I  have  labored  for  many  of  the 
neighboring  farmers,  as  well  as  for  others  who  are  not  farmers, 
and  have  partaken  at  their  board  as  one  of  the  household,  but  I 
have  never  lived  with  any  family  at  which  the  daily,  habitual 
fare  was  so  poor  and  coarse  as  that  on  Mr.  Griswold's  table." 
And  yet  among  his  parishioners  their  parson  was  remarkable 
as  given  to  hospitality,  and  one  sgiys  of  him,  "I  have  seen  our 
minister  when  a  negro  asked  charity,  after  ordering  the  table 
set  with  such  cheer  as  was  at  command,  though  it  was  not  his 
usual  meal  hour,  sit  down  and  partake  with  him,  lest  the  poor 
African  should  feel  himself  slighted." 

To  loan  his  horse  to  a  Congregational  neighbor  and  walk 
himself  to  his  day's  duty;  to  ride  through  terrible  storm  and 
drifting  snow  to  hold  service,  and,  returning  at  midnight,  to  go 
supperless  to  bed  rather  than  disturb  his  sleeping  family;  to 
spring  into  a  swollen  stream,  weighted  with  his  winter  clothing, 
to  rescue  a  drowning  boy;  in  his  best  suit  to  jump  over  a  garden 
fence  in  order  to  lend  his  "almost  herculean"  strength  to  raise  a 
rock  which  had  defied  the  united  efforts  of  several  men,  are  among 


12  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

the  stories  which  have  come  down  to  us  of  the  years  spent  in 
Litchfield  County. 

They  were  years  in  which  party  spirit  in  the  country  was 
running  high.  Beveridge,  in  his  "Life  of  John  Marshall,"  re- 
cords of  them.  "Actual  secession  of  the  Northern  and  Eastern 
States  had  not  been  openly  suggested  .  .  .  but  now  one 
of  the  boldest  and  frankest  of  their  number  (the  Federalists) 
broadly  hinted  it  to  be  the  Federalist  purpose,  should  the  Repub- 
licans persist  in  carrying  out  their  purpose  of  demolishing  the 
national  courts.  .  .  .  'There  are  states  in  this  Union,' 
Roger  Griswold  of  Connecticut  exclaimed,  'who  will  never  con- 
sent and  are  not  doomed  to  become  the  humble  provinces  of 
Virginia.'  " 

Alexander  had  a  brother  R.oger,  but  there  is  nothing  in  his 
memoirs  to  show  that  he  was  this  zealous  partizan,  and  through 
life,  both  as  priest  and  bishop,  Alexander  was  remarkable  in  his 
abstinence  from  any  share  in  the  political  controversies  of  the 
day.  While  many  ministers  of  the  Gospel  took  an  active  part 
in  politics,  his  parishioners  could  not  tell  which  side  he  held. 
At  last  one  of  them  determined  to  make  him  state  his  opinions, 
and  after  using  every  indirect  method  without  effect,  put  the 
direct  question.  "To  which  side  in  politics  do  you  belong?"  To 
which,  "My  Kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,"  was  the  mild  and 
only  reply. 

Yet  while  so  reticent  in  the  expression  of  his  political  views, 
Mr.  Griswold  was  influenced  by  the  practice  of  his  brothers  in 
the  ministry  in  preaching  on  sectarian  divisions.  The  Church 
during  long  years  in  New  England  had  left  in  "every  step  she 
took  the  track  of  a  hunted  thing!''  In  Connecticut  there  had 
long  been  a  "deep  rooted  and  violent  opposition  to  Episcopacy." 
A  spirit  of  sectarianism  and  controversy  was  rife  long  after 
Bishop  Seabury's  consecration,  and  it  bred  among  Church  people 
themselves  a  "proud  contempt  of  the  Puritans"  and  a  strong 
prejudice  against  their  doctrines.  From  the  beginning  of  his 
ministry  Mr.  Griswold  began  the  "never-remitted  habit"  of 
sermon  writing,   and  these  sermons,   often  prepared   in  hours 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  13 

Stolen  from  needed  sleep,  were,  he  declared  later,  "too  frequently 
in  defence  of  the  distinctive  principles  of  the  Protestant  Episco- 
pal Church,  to  the  great  neglect  of  the  essential  doctrines  of 
Christ  and  of  the  necessary  duties  of  Christians  " 

For  five  years  Mr.  Griswold  and  his  family  lived  in  East 
Plymouth,  and  he  gave  half  his  time  there  and  a  quarter  to 
Northfield  and  Harwinton  each.  In  1800  he  removed  to  Har- 
winton  where  a  parsonage  had  been  provided,  and  from  that 
time  on  divided  his  time  equally  among  the  three  parishes. 
Occasionally  also  he  would  cross  the  Massachusetts  border  to 
visit  and  minister  to  the  few  church  folk  in  the  little  town  of 
Blanford. 

So  ten  quiet  years  passed  on.  The  parishes  all  gradually 
increased  until  they  numbered  220  communicants.  There  was 
never  any  contention  or  "unkind  dispute"  between  pastor  and 
people.  All  were  "exceedingly  kind"  to  him  and  his.  "He  was 
the  idol  of  all  the  little  children  of  his  parishes."  A  country 
farmer  said  of  him,  "He  was  an  uncommonly  perfect  man.  You 
could  find  no  fault  in  him,  no  way." 

In  1803  Mr.  Griswold  took  the  first  real  holiday  of  his  life. 
A  friend  invited  him  to  visit  Bristol,  Rhode  Island,  and  he  passed 
a  fortnight  there,  preaching  each  Sunday  in  St.  Michael's 
Church.  The  parish  at  that  time  was  over  eighty  years  old, 
and  was  then  without  a  rector,  and  before  Mr.  Griswold's  visit 
ended,  he  was  urgently  asked  to  take  the  charge.  He  declined, 
but  in  the  fall,  and  again  in  the  winter,  men  made  the  long 
journey  from  Bristol  to  Harwinton  to  beg  him  to  reconsider, 
and  at  last  he  accepted  the  repeated  call.  This  was  with  the 
consent  of  Bishop  Jarvis,  who,  however,  said  that,  after  a  few 
years'  absence,  he  should  expect  him  to  return  to  Connecticut. 

The  reasons  for  Mr.  Griswold's  final  decision  are  not  fully 
known;  but  he  had  made  himself  responsible  for  a  third  part  of 
the  £500  paid  for  the  glebe  and  parsonage  at  Harwinton;  he 
had  become  involved  in  business  enterprises  made,  against  his 
judgment,  by  his  brother  Roger;  an  annual  $300  could  not 
both  support  his  family  and  free  him  from  debt ;  he  had  already 


14  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

thought  of  removing  to  some  milder  climate  and  less  arduous 
work;  the  call  thrice  made  from  Bristol  came  at  last  to  mean  to 
him  a  Providential  leading;  and  when  his  parish  released  him 
from  his  contract  with  them  and  took  the  glebe  engagement  off 
his  hands,  he  left  them  with  all  the  deeper  sorrow  but  with  a 
free  mind  and  heart 

EARLY    MINISTRY    IN   BRISTOL 

In  the  spring  of  1804  John  D'Wolf  of  Bristol,  who  had  once 
rounded  the  northwest  coast  of  the  continent,  and  so  was  known 
to  his  townsmen  as  "Northwest  John,"  fitted  out  one  of  his 
coasting  vessels,  and,  like  William  Holmes  170  years  before, 
sailed  through  Long  Island  Sound  and  up  the  Connecticut  River 
to  Hartford.  There  leaving  his  boat,  he  travelled  by  hired  team 
the  twenty  miles  and  more  farther  on  in  search  of  the  new  rector 
of  St.  Michael's,  whom,  with  his  family  and  his  belongings,  he 
was  to  take  back  with  him  to  Bristol. 

With  surprise  Captain  D'Wolf  found  Mr.  Griswold  at  his 
plough;  "a  farmer  in  the  field,  under  a  broad  brimmed  hat, 
with  patched  short  clothes,  coarse  stockings  and  heavy  shoes." 
But  this  was  the  last  time  he  was  to  appear  in  such  a  garb.  His 
new  home  and  parish  were  a  great  change  from  Litchfield  County 
and  its  mountain  missions.  The  fine  old  town  on  Narragansett 
Bay  had  a  style  of  its  own.  Its  people  had  interests  across  the 
seas  and  especially  with  the  West  Indies.  The  retired  captains 
built  large,  substantial  mansions  crowned  with  the  "captain's 
bridge,"  on  which  their  owners  paced  to  and  fro  on  many  a  starry 
night,  watching  the  heavens  and  the  waters  of  the  bay;  their 
wives  and  daughters  had  a  town  air  and  fashion  different  from 
the  quiet,  diligent  habit  of  the  Connecticut  farming  families. 

The  parish  had  been  organized  in  1719,  but  when  Mr. 
Griswold  became  rector,  there  were  but  twenty-five  families 
connected  with  it,  and  about  twenty  communicants.  An  endow- 
ment brought  in  a  salary  of  $600,  and  the  people  seemed  to  feel 
this  sufficient,  and  made  no  effort  to  increase  the  amount,  so 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  15 

again  Mr.  Griswold  had  to  find  other  means  by  which  to  add 
to  his  income,  and  for  that  purpose  opened  a  select  school. 

If,  among  his  hopes  in  changing  his  parish,  was  the  idea 
that  he  would  have  time  to  resume  some  of  his  favorite  studies, 
that  hope  had  to  be  abandoned.  On  entering  the  ministry  he 
had  written,  "I  found  that  my  hopes  of  leisure  for  much  reading 
were  not  to  be  realized  without  a  neglect  of  the  very  duties  to 
which  I  was  pledged.  ...  I  was  constrained  to  relinquish 
some  studies  in  which  I  had  very  much  delighted;  especially 
music  and  mathematics,  natural  philosophy  and  chemistry," 
and  now  he  had  cause  to  repeat  the  words.  At  the  same  time, 
however,  came  a  fresh  impetus  to  enter  more  deeply  than  ever 
before  into  the  study  of  those  things  peculiar  to  his  sacred  calling. 
For  he  found  in  Bristol  a  new  need  among  his  people,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  new  spirit  seemed  to  awaken  within  himself  — 
a  new  softening  of  heart  called  forth  not  only  by  his  people's 
need,  but  by  the  first  of  those  visitations  of  the  dread  disease, 
consumption,  which  was  to  take  from  him  in  rapidly  succeeding 
years,  ten  of  the  twelve  children  who  were  the  fruit  of  his  early 
marriage. 

In  beginning  his  new  ministry  he  found  that  those  sermons 
which  had  been  most  applauded  in  Connecticut  gave  offense  to 
the  Rhode  Island  people,  and  drove  from  the  Church  some  of 
the  "most  pious  of  her  members"  .to  attend  meetings  held  by 
Methodists  who  had  lately  settled  in  the  town.  In  order  to 
meet  this  problem  Mr.  Griswold  destroyed  many  hundreds  of 
the  sermons  he  had  prepared  so  carefully  and  under  such  diffi- 
culties, and  bent  his  energies  of  heart  and  mind  to  the  prepara- 
tion of  others.  After  much  persuasion  he  prevailed  upon  his 
vestry  to  allow  the  church  to  be  opened  for  a  third  service,  on 
Sunday  evening,  when  it  was  soon  found  that  more  came  to  that 
service  than  came  to  the  two  others,  some  of  them  attending 
that  only.  For  thirty  years  —  so  long  as  he  had  a  parish  under 
his  care  —  Mr.  Griswold  continued  this  practice,  which  he  was 
the  first  of  our  clergy  in  New  England  to  adopt.  It  was  a  method 
"exceedingly  disliked"  by  many  of  our  Church  people,  and  the 


16  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

bishop  of  Connecticut  had  once  said,  "night  preaching  and  pulpit 
praying  are  two  things  which  I  abhor."  That  Mr.  Griswold 
decided  upon  the  practice  so  speedily  after  realizing  the  need  of 
some  unusual  means  to  hold  his  people  and  to  strengthen  his 
parish  evidenced  to  the  firmness  of  character  that  was  often  to 
be  shown  when,  under  trying  circumstances,  he  did  what  he 
judged  to  be  right. 

For  five  years  he  continued  the  course  he  had  undertaken, 
in  sole  charge  of  a  large  school  during  the  week,  preaching  three 
times  each  Sunday,  and  preparing  occasional  lectures  in  Lent. 
At  the  close  of  this  period  he  started  on  a  second  vacation,  this 
time  going  from  Rhode  Island  to  Connecticut  instead  of  from 
Connecticut  to  Rhode  Island. 

It  was  in  the  heat  of  summer,  the  journey  by  chaise  was 
tedious  and  very  fatiguing;  before  he  reached  its  end  he  was 
taken  ill,  and  arrived  at  his  mother's  house  in  Simsbury  in  such 
a  condition  that  there  was  no  hope  of  his  life  being  spared.  He 
recovered,  however,  but  by  slow  degrees,  and  in  his  enfeebled 
health  returned  home,  to  find  his  school  and  parish  work  beyond 
his  strength.  The  recollection  of  Bishop  Jarvis'  words  returned 
to  him,  that  he  would  spare  him  to  Bristol  for  a  few  years  only, 
and  he  went  back  to  Connecticut,  evidently  thinking  that,  should 
the  way  open,  he  would  settle  there  again.  The  opening  came 
in  a  call  to  St.  Michael's,  Litchfield,  near  his  old  cures  of  North- 
field  and  Harwinton.  He  decided  to  accept,  and  arranged  the 
time  for  his  return,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  Digby  twenty-four 
years  earlier,  the  change  was  never  made.  For,  in  the  year 
1809  came  the  great  call  which  bound  the  remainder  of  his  life 
with  that  solitary  experiment  in  the  American  Church  —  the 
Eastern  Diocese. 

When  Mr.  Griswold  came  to  Rhode  Island,  that  diocese  was 
without  a  bishop.  On  November  18,  1790,  its  infant  conven- 
tion —  of  two  clerical  and  five  lay  delegates  —  had  declared 
Bishop  Seabury  of  Connecticut  to  be  their  bishop.  Two  years 
after  his  death,  in  1798,  they  elected  Bishop  Bass  of  Massachu- 
setts.    After   his  death,    in    1803,   three   years   passed,    during 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  17 

which  no  effort  was  made  to  secure  a  successor.  By  that  time 
Mr.  Griswold  had  been  added  to  the  list  of  clergy,  and  was 
chairman  of  the  committee  appointed  by  the  convention  of 
1806  to  ask  Bishop  Moore  of  New  York  to  take  the  churches 
of  the  diocese  under  his  care.  How  few  were  the  bishops,  and 
how  slowly  the  growing  need  was  met,  are  shown  in  Bishop 
Moore's  reply.  South  Carolina  also  had  just  called  him  to 
care  for  that  diocese ;  the  duties  of  his  own  diocese  were  so  many 
and  so  pressing,  he  could  not  add  to  them  the  charge  of  these 
others. 

THE    EASTERN   DIOCESE    AND    ELECTION   OF    BISHOP 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Bishop  Parker,  who  had  succeeded 
Bishop  Bass  in  Massachusetts,  after  an  eight  months'  episcopate 
with  no  episcopal  acts,  was  nearing  his  death,  and  the  movement 
now  began,  which  resulted  in  the  formation  of  the  Eastern 
Diocese.  Apart  from  Connecticut  the  territory  of  New  England 
was  composed  of  four  so-called  dioceses,  without  bishops  and  in 
sad  need  of  episcopal  leadership  and  supervision,  yet  each  one 
of  them  so  weak  as  to  feel  unable  to  support  a  bishop  of  its  own. 
Massachusetts,  indeed,  had  had  two  bishops,  and  Vermont  had 
made  two  ineffectual  attempts  to  secure  one,  but  even  in  Massa- 
chusetts, where  the  Church  was  strongest,  the  bishops  had  been 
obliged  to  retain  their  parishes  in  order  to  receive  adequate 
support.  That  state  naturally  took  the  lead  in  suggesting  a 
diocesan  union  and  in  the  convention  of  1805  it  first  recom- 
mended that  this  union  be  made  with  Rhode  Island  and  New 
Hampshire.  The  convention  of  1801  requested  its  president 
to  correspond  with  the  clergy  of  those  states  upon  the  subject, 
but  it  was  not  until  1809  that,  at  an  informal  meeting  of  some 
of  the  principal  clergymen  of  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island, 
the  plan  of  the  Eastern  Diocese  was  discussed  and  formulated. 
The  Rev.  William  Montague  of  Christ  Church.  Dedham,  Massa- 
chusetts, seems  to  have  been  a  chief  mover  in  this  enterprise. 
It  was  he  who  called  this  meeting  and  who,  before  the  diocesan 


18  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

convention  upon  May  30,  rode  a  thousand  miles,  visiting  the 
clergy  and  pressing  the  subject  upon  them. 

The  Massachusetts  conventions  of  May  and  August  adopted 
the  plan  and  sent  invitations  to  New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island 
and  Vermont  to  a  joint  convention  to  be  held  in  Boston  on  May 
29,  1810.  The  Rhode  Island  convention  of  June  7,  1809,  ap- 
pointed Mr.  Griswold  chairman  of  the  committee  of  corres- 
pondence upon  this  matter,  which  appointment  must  have  been 
made  just  before  his  trip  to  Connecticut  and  the  serious  illness 
which  determined  him  to  remove  thither.  By  the  spring  of 
1810  his  plans  were  so  far  made,  that  he  was  about  starting  for 
Litchfield  to  complete  them,  when  the  illness  of  his  travelling 
companion  delayed  the  journey. 

This  accidental  "happening"  changed  the  whole  current 
of  Mr.  Griswold's  life.  As  he  had  expected  to  have  no  personal 
connection  with  the  proposed  new  diocese,  he  had  not  thought  of 
attending  the  convention  that  had  been  called;  but  as  this  time 
was  now  left  free  he  decided  to  take  the  opportunity  to  visit 
Boston  and  have  the  pleasure  of  meeting  such  an  unusual  number 
of  his  fellow  Churchmen,  almost  all  of  whom  were  strangers  to 
him. 

As  he  purstied  his  way,  his  mind  turned  to  the  purpose  for 
which  these  men  were  gathering,  and  the  importance  of  the 
meeting  impressed  him  more  and  more.  We  can  easily  picture 
him  —  a  solitary  traveller,  entering  Boston  for  the  first  time 
since  his  youth  —  absorbed  in  prayer  that  God  would  guide  the 
convention  to  a  right  choice.  His  thoughts  fixed  on  John 
Henry  Hobart  of  New  York,  the  young  and  ardent  rector  of 
Trinity  Parish,  through  his  writings  and  activities  the  most 
widely  known  parish  clergyman  in  the  Church.  But  on  reaching 
Boston  he  was  told  that  Mr.  Hobart  had  already  been  approached 
and  had  declined  to  have  his  name  mentioned.  The  Rev.  John 
S.  J.  Gardiner,  then  Rector  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  the 
leading  church  within  the  limits  of  the  proposed  new  diocese, 
was  opposed  to  having  any  one  from  outside  elected,  as  the  new 
episcopal  head.     He  himself  would  have  been  the  natural  choice, 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  19 

but  he  would  not  consider  an  election,  and  described  the  kind 
of  man  who  he  thought  should  be  chosen  in  such  a  way  as  to 
show  that  he  felt  the  position  one  far  from  ease  and  honor. 
They  should  choose  some  one,  he  said,  of  middle  age  and  "cap- 
able of  enduring  the  fatigues  of  travelling,  and  of  patiently  sub- 
mitting to  the  hardships  and  mortifications  incident  to  the 
office  in  such  an  extended  territory  and  under  such  unpromising 
circumstances." 

Six  clerical  and  sixteen  lay  delegates  from  Massachusetts, 
two  clerical  and  two  lay  from  Rhode  Island,  one  clerical  and  two 
lay  from  New  Hampshire,  one  clerical  and  three  lay  from  Ver- 
mont, came  together  for  this  joint  convention,  and  on  the  day 
preceding  it  two  of  the  lay  delegates,  Mr.  Chipman  from  Ver- 
mont and  Mr.  Halsey  from  Rhode  Island,  decided  upon  Mr. 
Griswold  as  their  choice.  On  the  evening  of  this  day  some  of  the 
delegates  met  informally  together,  and  when  Mr.  Gardiner 
described  the  kind  of  man  needed  for  their  new  bishop,  the 
Rev.  N.  B.  Crocker  of  St.  John's  Church,  Providence,  proposed 
Mr.  Griswold.  The  Rev.  Abraham  Bronson,  the  only  clerical 
delegate  from  Vermont,  who  had  known  him  in  Connecticut, 
was  in  hearty  accord  with  the  proposal,  and  with  Mr.  Crocker 
sought  out  the  Rev.  Daniel  Barber,  the  sole  clerical  delegate 
from  New  Hampshire.  He  had  known  Mr.  Griswold  from 
childhood,  and  warmly  approved  the  nomination. 

On  Tuesday.  May  29,  1810,  the  convention  met.  Mr. 
Bronson  and  Mr.  Griswold  were  appointed  on  a  committee  to 
draw  up  a  constitution  for  the  new  diocese,  which  committee 
was  to  report  on  Thursday.  As  their  work  ended,  Mr.  Griswold 
asked  Mr.  Bronson  if  he  had  heard  any  one  named  for  the 
bishopric.  Mr.  Bronson  asked  if  he  had  heard  of  their  choice, 
Mr.  Griswold  said  "No,"  when  Mr.  Bronson  rejoined,  "Then  let 
me  tell  you,  thou  art  the  man." 

This  announcement  came  to  Mr.  Griswold  not  only  as  a 
complete  surprise,  but  as  a  great  shock.  That  he  was  present 
at  the  convention  at  all  was  unexpected.  His  mind  had  been 
fully  made  up  to  leave  Rhode  Island  and  return  to  the  quiet 


20  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

hill  country  of  Connecticut;  his  thoughts  had  already  settled  in 
a  region  of  pleasantness  and  peace  and  comparative  leisure. 
And  here  was  opened  before  him  an  untried  and  difficult  future, 
with  ever  growing  responsibilities  and  cares.  For  a  moment  he 
was  thrown  into  "wild  agitation,"  and  then,  collecting  himself, 
he  declared  to  Mr.  Bronson  that  he  was  unfit  for  the  office  and 
that  they  must  choose  another  man.  "Sir,"  said  Mr.  Bronson, 
"you  must  be  the  candidate,  or  we  shall  have  no  election." 

On  Thursday,  May  31,  the  convention  re-assembled.  The 
constitution  for  the  new  diocese  was  adopted,  and  the  bishop 
elected.  In  the  proceedings  the  delegates  from  the  four  states 
had  an  equal  vote  and  secured  for  the  Church  in  each  state  equal 
rights ;  but  while  the  delegates  were  appointed  by  the  conventions 
of  the  separate  states,  the  Eastern  Diocese  itself  was  considered 
not  "a  confederation  of  distinct  and  independent  dioceses," 
but  as  "one  proper  diocese,  with  a  convention  from  the  Churches 
of  the  four  several  states."  And  for  this  new  diocese,  unprece- 
dented in  the  history  of  the  Church,  by  the  vote  of  every  mem- 
ber save  one  of  the  convention,  Mr.  Griswold  was  chosen  bishop. 

Through  the  day  he  had  been  sitting,  absorbed  in  thought 
and  heedless  of  what  passed  on  around  him.  When  the  votes 
were  declared,  his  first  feeling  was  "that  the  Lord  in  displeasure 
had  suffered  such  an  election."  Greatly  moved,  he  rose  and 
declined  the  honor.  He  wanted  no  time  for  consideration,  he 
could  make  his  decision  there  and  then.  But  the  convention 
adjourned  for  three  months,  and  when  the  first  emotion  had 
passed,  he  began  to  consider  the  Providential  guidance  which 
had  led  him  to  this  unlooked  for  task,  and  to  consult  old  friends 
in  Connecticut  upon  the  matter.  In  June,  1810,  Bishop  Jarvis 
sent  him  a  letter  of  congratulation  in  behalf  of  the  convocation 
of  his  clergy;  Mr.  Bronson  wrote  from  Vermont  and  Mr.  Barber 
from  New  Hampshire,  urging  him  to  reconsider  and  accept; 
the  one  dissenting  vote  was  withdrawn,  and  on  September  12 
he  gave  his  acceptance,  and  on  the  25th  the  adjourned  meeting 
of  the  preliminary  convention  was  held  and  the  letter  of  ac- 
ceptance read.     This  convention  then  dissolved,   and  on  the 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  21 

succeeding  day  the  first  convention  of  the  Eastern  Diocese 
opened  and  Mr.  Griswold  preached  the  sermon. 

Up  to  that  time  he  had  hardly  spoken  save  in  the  home 
church  in  Simsbury,  in  the  three  country  churches  in  Litchfield 
County,  in  the  Blanford  schoolhouse  and  in  his  parish  church 
of  vSt.  Michael's,  Bristol.  Now  in  Trinity  Church,  Boston, 
on  the  threshold  of  his  new  office,  before  a  congregation  of 
strangers,  he  preached  from  II  Timothy  iv.  1-3,  "Preach  the 
word;  be  instant,  in  season,  out  of  season;  reprove,  rebuke, 
exhort,  with  all  long-suffering  and  doctrine."  "Who  is  the 
preacher?"  asked  a  leading  Congregational  minister  of  Boston, 
and  when  told  it  was  the  bishop-elect  of  the  Eastern  Diocese, 
he  exclaimed,  "I  can  only  say  that  if  such  is  the  general  character 
of  his  preaching,  he  is  worthy  to  be  made  ardx-bishop  of  Christen- 
dom." 

But  though  so  unanimously  chosen  and  so  greatly  needed 
by  his  diocese,  it  was  May  29,  1811,  before  Mr.  Griswold's 
consecration  took  place.  General  Convention  met  in  New 
Haven  from  May  21  to  24,  and  his  testimonials  and  those  of 
Dr.  Hobart,  as  assistant  in  the  Diocese  of  New  York,  were 
signed  and  their  consecration  expected.  But  of  the  six  bishops 
who  then  composed  the  House  of  Bishops,  only  Bishop  White 
of  Pennsylvania  and  Bishop  Jarvis  attended  the  convention, 
and  it  was  ordered  that  the  bishops-elect  should  proceed  to 
New  York,  in  the  hope  that  Bishop  Provoost  of  that  diocese 
might  be  able  to  join  with  the  others  in  the  consecration. 

The  day  was  set.  May  29,  the  place.  Trinity  Church;  Bishop 
Provoost,  not  fully  recovered  from  a  recent  illness,  was  pre- 
vailed upon  to  make  the  effort  to  attend,  and  the  consecration 
took  place.  What  must  have  been  a  pleasure  to  Bishop  Hobart 
must  have  been  a  disappointment  to  Bishop  Griswold.  The 
former  was  elevated  to  this  high  office  in  his  own  church,  among 
his  own  people,  by  his  diocesan  and  by  the  presiding  bishop 
who  had  baptized  and  confirmed  him;  while  the  latter,  who 
might  naturally  have  looked  forward  with  pleasure  to  his  con- 
secration in  the  state  of  his  birth  and  among  friends  and  relatives, 


22  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

received  it  in  a  strange  place  and  among  strangers.  Perhaps  the 
lonehness  of  his  position  reacted  on  his  serious  and  reflective 
mind,  and  made  him  dwell  more  than  otherwise  he  would  have 
done  upon  two  circumstances  attendant  upon  the  service. 

In  the  laying  on  of  hands  Bishop  White,  as  he  says  in  his 
Memoir <,  "inadvertently"  omitted  the  words  "In  the  Name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  This  led 
to  much  discussion  and  questioning  as  to  the  validity  of  the 
orders  conferred,  but  with  regard  to  Bishop  Hobart  only  — 
Bishop  Griswold  being  so  unknown  and  unconsidered  by  New 
York  Churchmen,  that  seemingly  they  were  indifferent  as  to 
how  this  same  oversight  might  affect  him.  Nor  did  this  criti- 
cism die  away  until  Bishop  White  had  shown  that  the  words 
did  not  occur,  in  that  place,  in  the  Church  of  England  until  the 
time  of  Charles  II,  and  that  they  were  "not  to  be  found  in  the 
liturgies  of  the  Primitive  Church  or  in  the  Roman  Pontificial 
of  today." 

The  other  circumstance  which  Bishop  Griswold  records 
in  his  autobiography  was,  that,  although  his  election  had  pre- 
ceded Dr.  Hobart's  by  nearly  a  year,  and  he  had  been  elected 
bishop  of  a  diocese  while  Dr.  Hobart  had  been  chosen  as  assis- 
tant bishop  only,  Bishop  White  had  laid  his  hands  in  conse- 
cration first  upon  Dr.  Hobart,  with  the  result  that  in  the  order 
of  the  episcopate  Bishop  Hobart  always  outranked  him,  and, 
but  for  his  death,  earlier  than  that  of  Bishop  White,  would  have 
become  the  presiding  bishop  of  the  Church. 

Bishop  Griswold  was  not  an  ambitious  man.  He  was 
silent,  reserved  and  shy,  modest  and  self-contained;  but  he  was 
essentially  clear  minded  and  just.  He  disliked  position  and 
publicity,  and  when  Bishop  Hobart's  early  death  led  to  his 
holding  for  seven  years  the  place  of  presiding  bishop,  it  was  only 
his  strong  sense  of  duty  that  made  him  consent  to  preside  in  the 
House  of  Bishops.  But  if  the  precedency  given  to  Bishop 
Hobart  should  have  been  his,  he  felt  that  this  should  have  been 
admitted;  and  it  is  evident  that  his  judgment  could  not  yield 
to  Bishop  White's  explanation  that  he  laid  his  hands  first  on  Dr. 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  23 

Hobart  because  of  his  degree,  precedency  in  England  being  given 
according  to  priority  of  date  in  university  degrees.  It  is  possible 
that  this  occurrence  which,  in  Bishop  Griswold's  mind,  marred 
the  complete  harmony  of  his  consecration  day,  on  occasion  had 
no  little  influence  in  his  future  attitude;  but  his  chief  comrrient 
at  the  time  was,  "The  whole  business  has  been  much  blessed  to 
me  in  the  subduing  of  a  proud  heart." 

The  honors  lacking  at  the  date  of  his  consecration  soon 
came  to  the  new  bishop.  In  October.  1811,  the  College  of 
New  Jersey,  at  Princeton,  conferred  on  him  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Divinity,  and  in  the  same  year  he  received  that  degree  from 
Brown  University,  Providence,  which  in  1812  made  him  a  Fellow 
and  in  1815  its  Chancellor. 

Meanwhile  Bishop  Griswold  had  returned  from  New  York 
to  review  the  field  of  his  Vv'ork  and  to  enter  upon  its  duties. 

In  the  four  states  which  made  up  his  diocese  —  Massachu- 
setts, then  including  Maine,  Rhode  Island,  New  Hampshire 
and  Vermont  —  there  were  twenty-two  parishes  and  sixteen 
officiating  clergymen.  Trinity,  Boston,  St.  John's,  Providence, 
and  Trinity,  Newport,  were  the  onl}^  really  strong  parishes; 
Christ  Church,  Boston,  St.  Paul's,  Newburyport,  St.  Michael's, 
Bristol,  St.  Paul's,  Narragansett  County,  St.  John's,  Portsmouth, 
and  St.  James'  Great  Barrington,  all  ante-dated  the  Revolution 
and  supported  their  rectors,  but  could  do  little  towards  the 
endowment  of  the  episcopate.  Some  of  the  clergy  had  grown 
lax,  but  most  of  them  rallied  to  their  bishop  and  gave  him  and 
their  work  a  faithful  and  diligent  service.  And  to  them  his 
heart  opened  with  a  tender  warmth.  He  had  felt  them  to  be 
his  brethren  and  friends;    they  now  became  his  children. 

PAROCHIAL   AND    EPISCOPAL   CARES 

Heavy  family  griefs  doubtless  increased  this  feeling.  A 
daughter  twenty  years  of  age  had  lately  died;  his  oldest  son 
and  daughter  were  both  slowly  fading  away.  Sorrowful  but 
calm  and  uncomplaining  he  went  out  to  meet  the  spiritual  needs 


24  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

of  the  larger  family  which  the  Church  had  given  to  his  care. 
A  strong  sense  was  growing  upon  him  that  he  was  an  instrument 
for  his  people's  good.  And  what  he  felt  for  all  his  people  came 
home  to  him  with  peculiar  force  for  the  people  of  his  parish. 

In  the  six  years  in  which  he  had  ministered  in  Bristol  the 
number  of  communicants  had  increased  from  twenty  to  forty 
only.  Now  with  redoubled  intensity  he  labored  in  their  behalf. 
Working  his  garden  by  day  and  writing  his  sermons  by  night, 
to  his  three  services  on  Sunday  he  added  a  Wednesday  evening 
sermon  and  soon  noticed  an  increased  seriousness  in  his  congre- 
gations. Some  of  them  began  to  come  to  him  expressing  their 
awakened  consciousness,  and  once  or  twice  a  week  their  bishop- 
rector  met  them  for  special  prayer.  The  interest  spread  through- 
out the  town.  There  was  a  veritable  revival.  Forty-four 
adults  were  baptized  and  a  hundred  were  added  to  the  number  of 
communicants,  more  than  half  of  whom  had  been  attending 
worship  elsewhere  or  not  at  all. 

For  nineteen  years  longer  he  continticd  to  be  the  rector  of 
St.  Michael's.  In  1809  the  Massachusetts  convention  had  voted 
that  a  fund  be  raised  for  the  support  of  a  bishop,  and  an  incorpor- 
ation, known  as  "Trustees  of  Donations  to  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church"  was  established.  The  objects  of  this  incorp- 
oration were  the  support  of  the  bishop  of  the  Eastern  Diocese 
and  the  care  of  such  funds  or  property  as  might  be  entrusted  to 
it  for  the  benefit  of  churches  or  church  institutions  within  the 
diocese.  Subscriptions  for  the  bishop's  fund  were  opened  in 
September,  1810,  after  Mr.  Griswold  had  accepted  his  election, 
and  it  had  gained  the  amount  of  some  $15,000,  which  gave  the 
bishop  a  yearly  income  of  about  $900.  This  amount,  however 
inadequate  for  the  purpose,  came  almost  entirely  from  Massa- 
chusetts, and  it  was  natural  that  appeals  should  soon  come  from 
that  diocese  that  the  bishop  should  settle  there.  He  was  living 
too  far  from  Boston- — "the  centre";  the  clergy  in  Portland 
felt  themselves  too  remote  from  his  help  and  influence  and 
begged  him  to  move  to  some  point  nearer  them;  the  parish  of 
St.  Peter's,  Salem,  weary  of  a  succession  of  "cold  and  uninter- 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  25 

esting  readers"  who  could  "not  administer  the  necessary  rites 
of  the  Church,"  sent  him  repeated  calls.  In  1816  another  effort 
was  made.  The  feeling  continued  and  increased  that  their 
bishop  should  be  in  closer  touch  with  his  people  and  freer  for 
diocesan  duties.  He  was  urgently  called  to  Cambridge,  and, 
in  addition  to  other  reasons,  the  personal  advantages  were  set 
before  him  of  the  use  of  "the  large  and  valuable  library  of  the 
imiversity"  and  the  society  of  "learned  and  amiable  men  em- 
ployed in  the  government  and  instruction  of  that  institution." 

On  both  occasions  Bishop  Griswold  took  months  for  con- 
sideration and  both  times  in  the  end  sadly  disappointed  his 
petitioners.  He  could  not  make  up  his  mind  that  the  advantages 
to  the  diocese  would  outweigh  family  and  parish  claims,  and  he 
felt  that  as  long  as  the  bishop  could  not  be  supported  by  the 
diocese  in  a  manner  befitting  his  office  and  position,  the  more 
retired  the  situation  he  occupied  the  better.  No  doubt  his 
disposition  and  the  quiet  tenor  of  his  life  made  him  shrink  from 
the  proposed  change;  in  any  case  he  found  it  "difficult  if  not 
impossible"  to  leave  Bristol,  where  he  was  bound  to  his  parish- 
ioners "by  years  of  most  perfect  harmony,  with  ties  of  gratitude 
and  affection,"  where  he  had  managed  to  acquire  a  house  and 
garden  for  his  family,  and  where,  perhaps  strongest  claim  of  all, 
the  graves  in  the  churchyard  held  him  with  a  compelling  force. 

So,  from  1811  to  1830,  with  ttie  cares  and  labors  of  the 
diocese  and  the  general  Church  increasing  yearly  upon  him, 
he  continued  to  pour  out  that  constant  flow  of  instruction  to  the 
people  of  his  parish  and  community,  which  he  enumerates  in  his 
autobiography  —  a  course  of  eighty  or  ninety  lectures  on  the 
four  Gospels,  "in  the  way  of  harmony."  a  series  of  thirty-three 
discourses  on  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  twelve  on  the  Catholic 
Doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  ten  on  the  Ten  Commandments  with 
five  on  Our  Lord's  summary  of  the  Decalogue,  several  on  the 
Catechism  and  the  Apostles'  Creed,  one  on  the  Book  of  the 
Revelation  of  St.  John  considered  chapter  by  chapter,  and 
seventy  upon  the  Pentateuch.  All  of  these  lectures  were  de- 
livered on  Sunday  evenings  —  that  practice  so  "abhorred"  by 


26  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

the  Bishop  of  Connecticut,  and  were  considered  by  Bishop 
Griswold  as  "among  the  most  efficacious  of  (his)  pulpit  labors." 
And  all  this  was  in  addition  to  the  sermons,  of  which  he  had  on 
hand,  after  destroying  twelve  or  fourteen  hundred,  more  than 
he  could  ever  use  in  the  future.  The  Rev.  John  Bristed,  his 
successor  in  St.  Michael's,  who  had  lived  in  his  house  and  studied 
under  him,  and  who  was  himself  an  author  and  an  accomplished 
critic,  wrote  of  the  Bishop's  preaching,  "To  a  very  high  order  of 
human  talent  he  joins  the  profoundest  and  most  comprehensive 
acquaintance  with  Scriptural  Doctrine.  I  have  heard  some  of 
the  greatest  preachers  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic 
but  I  never  sat  under  a  minister  from  whom  I  received  so 
much  and  so  varied  instruction  in  the  Word  of  God."  And 
a  parishioner  testified  that  his  life  responded  to  his  teachings. 
"It  was  a  remark  often  made  (in  Bristol)  respecting  him  ,"  she 
wrote,  "that  there  was  one  specimen  of  perfection  in  the  world". 

With  such  service  as  this  as  a  parish  priest  Bishop  Griswold 
combined  the  duties  of  his  episcopate.  Even  before  his  conse- 
cration a  call  had  come  to  him  to  visit  Lanesborough,  Massachu- 
setts, not  only  to  confirm  but  to  remain  "a  number  of  days,  not 
less  than  four,"  in  order  to  settle  serious  parish  difficulties.  The 
month  after  his  consecration,  in  June,  1811,  he  started  on  his 
first  visitation,  resi^onding  to  this  call  and  going  to  Lenox  and 
Great  Barrington  also,  in  the  valley  of  the  Housatonic.  No 
bishop  had  ever  visited  these  parishes,  and  he  found  the  whole 
body  of  communicants  and  many  not  already  communicants 
awaiting  confirmation.  Other  parishes  which  Bishop  Bass  had 
visited  had  been  for  eight  years  without  episcopal  visitation, 
and  in  these  he  was  equally  needed  and  equally  welcome.  It 
was  not  strange  that  when,  in  1812,  he  was  approached  on  the 
subject  of  adding  to  his  present  office  that  of  coadjutor  to 
Bishop  Jarvis  of  Connecticut,  with  the  prospect  of  becoming 
bishop  of  that  diocese,  he  could  not  consider  such  a  proposition. 
His  lot  was  cast  with  that  of  the  Eastern  Diocese. 

And  so  began  that  long  succession  of  journeys  made  imder 
conditions  that  would  tax  the  strongest  frame  and  most  deter- 


ALEXANDER  VIETS  GRISWOLD  27 

mined  will.  They  included  not  only  the  usual  visits  to  parishes 
and  attendance  upon  conventions  of  his  diocese  —  biennial  up 
to  1820,  and  annual  from  that  time  on  —  but  also  upon  the 
annual  conventions  of  the  four  separate  dioceses  —  five,  after 
the  organization  of  Maine,  in  1820,  contained  within  the  bounds 
of  the  Eastern  Diocese,  as  well  as  upon  the  sessions  of  General 
Conventions  held  in  either  New  York  or  Philadelphia,  from  1814 
to  1841  inclusive.  He  never  failed  in  keeping  appointments, 
again  and  again  hazarding  health  and  even  life  to  do  so.  He 
would  respond  to  what  seem  to  have  been  unreasonable  and 
inconsiderate  appeals,  as  from  a  candidate  and  lay  reader  in 
Guilford,  Vermont,  to  come  to  that  parish  in  the  winter  of  1818 
to  consecrate  the  church.  The  bishop  on  December  16  had  just 
finished  his  visitations,  but  if  the  matter  were  of  sufficient  im- 
portance and  would  help  in  the  upbuilding  of  the  Church  in 
Guilford  he  "would  not  hesitate  at  all";  though  travelling  in 
stages,  when  the  weather  was  cold  and  the  nights  were  long,  was 
"inconvenient  to  people  advanced  in  life,"  and  he  had  meant  to 
spend  the  winter  in  his  study  and  the  duties  of  his  parish.  Also 
the  expenses  of  the  year,  to  the  amount  of  some  hundreds  of 
dollars  had  outrun  his  scanty  income,  and  it  would  be  difficult 
immediately  to  get  the  means  of  meeting  those  for  a  new  journey. 
Still,  he  "particularly  desired  that  no  regard  to  (his)  convenience 
should  induce  any  dereliction  of  the  interests  of  religion";  and 
accordingly  to  Guilford  he  went.  So  again  and  again,  "fearful 
lest  any  interest  should  suffer  through  his  neglect,"  he  would 
let  "neither  distance  of  place,  inclemency  of  season,  enfeebled 
strength,  exhausted  purse,  fondness  for  home  or  love  of  study" 
keep  him  from  the  work  which  claimed  a  bishop's  care. 

On  one  occasion  a  violent  storm  prevented  the  regular 
ferry  boat  making  its  eight-mile  trip  across  Narragansett  Bay, 
and  he  bribed  a  boatman  to  take  him  in  his  open  boat.  Midway 
the  boatman  declared  they  could  go  no  farther.  "If  she  carried 
more  ballast,"  he  said,  "she  might  perhaps  live  through  the 
bay."  "Would  it  help,"  asked  the  bishop,  "were  I  to  lie  down 
in  the  boat?"     "No  better  ballast  than  that  could  she  have," 


28  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

said  the  boatman ;  and  the  bishop  cast  himself  on  his  face,  and  the 
weight  of  his  strong  frame  —  "much  heavier  than  that  of  common 
men" —  proved  sufficient  for  the  need.  So,  wet  and  encrusted 
with  gray  brine,  he  arrived  scarcely  recognizable  among  his 
waiting  flock. 

Or  again  the  bishop  would  travel  uncomfortably  rather  than 
inconvenience  others.  In  a  journal  of  1818  he  wrote  of  a  trip  to 
Rutland,  Vermont,  "In  order  to  save  trouble  to  my  friends 
take  a  seat  in  a  wagon,  going  by  night.  May  I  ever  imitate  St. 
Paul,  and,  as  far  as  is  practicable,  avoid  being  burthensome  to 
the  Churches,  and  the  giving  of  pain,  trouble  or  expense  to  my 
people." 

The  bishop's  "almost  numberless  journeys,"  though  so 
arduous  and  trying  to  his  health,  were  made  without  accident, 
and  seemed  sometimes,  by  "the  counter-irritant  of  motion  and 
toil,"  to  wear  out  disease;  though  "no  frame  of  less  iron  hardi- 
ness than  his  could,  with  any  safety,  have  hazarded  the  perils 
of  his  frequent  extreme  exposure,"  and  in  the  last  five  years  of 
his  life  he  suffered  during  his  journeyings,  and  with  increasing 
frequency,  very  dangerous  attacks  of  illness.  But  his  constitu- 
tion was  such  that  as  these  atttacks  yielded,  he  was  "straightway 
on  his  feet  again,  apparently  as  well  as  ever."  In  a  letter  written 
on  August  25,  1842,  he  mentions  for  the  first  and  only  time  taking 
"the  railroad  cars"  from  Westfield  to  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts. 
"What  months  of  tedious  travel,"  his  biographer  writes,  "in 
storm  and  flood;  over  rough  roads,  and  rugged  mountains;  in 
piercing  cold,  and  melting  heat;  by  public  stage,  and  in  open 
wagon;  with  his  mind  stretching  forward,  while  his  body  dragged 
behind,  would  have  been  saved  him.  had  the  .  .  .  system 
of  railroads,  which  now  spreads  from  Boston  through  almost  the 
whole  of  what  was  once  the  Eastern  Diocese,  been  in  existence 
and  operation,  when  he  first  began  his  two  and  thirty  years  of 
perilous   and    exhausting    journeyings!" 

But  these  journeys,  so  taxing  to  his  physical  strength,  were 
by  no  means  the  most  painful  trials  that  beset  the  bishop  in  his 
course.     His  episcopate  began  as  the  War  of  1812  was  drawing 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  29 

near.  That  war  had  an  evil  effect  upon  the  seaport  towns  de- 
pendent upon  foreign  trade.  They  were  almost  depopulated, 
and  felt  lonely  and  deserted  and  morally  and  religiously  depressed. 
These  influences  spread  into  the  interior  country,  and  factional 
spirit  ran  high.  In  the  old  parish  in  Great  Barrington  this 
spirit  caused  such  dissension  between  the  people  and  their 
rector  —  a  brother  of  the  bishop  —  as  was  ended  only  after  eight 
weary  years  in  Mr.  Griswold's  withdrawing  from  the  active 
duties  of  the  ministry  to  the  old  home  in  Simsbury,  leaving  a 
wrecked  parish  behind  him. 

Bishop  Griswold's  report  to  his  first  convention,  made  in 
1812,  was  a  brief  record  of  the  work  done  during  the  sixteen 
months  since  his  consecration.  He  did  not  touch  on  those  things 
already  burdening  his  mind  —  parishes  "at  their  last  gasp"  or 
already  "perished,"  the  great  prejudice  against  lay  readers  and 
the  great  lack  of  clergy;  candidates  for  Holy  Orders  asking 
permission  to  read  their  own  sermons  or  for  Ordination  before 
reaching  the  age  of  twenty-one;  the  offer  of  a  Congregational 
minister  to  hold  services  in  a  vacant  parish,  the  discipline  neces- 
sary to  be  enforced  upon  two  of  his  scanty  band  of  clergy. 

The  convention  endorsed  the  project  of  a  diocesan  library, 
which  never  materialized,  and  a  plan  of  annual  collections  for 
the  feeble  parishes  of  the  diocese.  The  bishop  appointed  Easter 
Day  as  the  time  for  these  collections,  and  the  practice  endured 
throughout  the  life  of  the  diocese,  although  with  small  results. 

MISSIONARY    INTERESTS 

Two  years  previous  to  this  convention  in  1810  the  Con- 
gregationalists  had  organized  in  Boston  the  American  Board  of 
Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions,  and  Bishop  Griswold 
doubtless  had  this  in  mind  when,  in  sending  out  a  circular  letter 
urging  the  Easter  collections,  he  wrote,  "Whilst  (so  much  to  the 
honor  of  the  Christian  name)  a  liberal  spirit  of  piety  and  zeal  for 
distributing  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  for  diffusing  the  light  of 
the  Gospel  to  the  remotest  nations  of  the  earth,  pervades  the 
Christian  world;    it  may  reasonably  be  expected  that  the  state 


30  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

and  exigencies  of  the  Church  in  this  Diocese  will  not,  by  its 
friends,  be  forgotten  or  neglected." 

The  bishop  recognized  also  what  these  Christians  of  other 
names  were  doing  within  the  limits  of  the  diocese  itself.  He 
could  recall  the  early  days  of  his  own  ministry,  and  the  move- 
ments, in  1798,  of  the  "associated  (Congregational)  pastors  of 
Connecticut"  to  form  a  missionary  society,  which,  beginning 
there,  should  work  out  into  neighboring  states  and  make  its 
farther  way  "to  christianize  the  heathen  in  North  America,  and 
to  support  and  promote  Christian  knowledge  in  the  new  settle- 
ments within  the  United  States."  So.  while  he  gladly  visited 
the  new  parish  of  St.  James',  Greenfield,  "where  Episcopalians 
were  never  known  before,"  and  where  "if  he  would  come,  very 
many  of  other  denominations  would  flock  to  it  as  an  ark  of 
safety  from  the  threatening  deluge  of  Socinianism,"  in  travelling 
through  the  western  portion  of  his  field,  he  pointed  out  to  his 
companion  the  many  houses  of  worship  belonging  to  the  "ortho- 
dox Congregationalists,  Baptists  and  Methodists;  but  not  one 
belonging  to  Episcopalians,"  on  the  way.  "As  we  have  passed 
along,"  he  said,  "I  have  been  thinking  what  the  people  of  our 
State  would  do,  if  they  could  not  find  religion  except  by  seeking 
it  in  our  Church." 

Bishop  Griswold  returned  from  the  General  Convention 
of  1814  to  the  Biennial  Convention  of  his  diocese  with  a  charge 
to  his  clergy  which  he  afterwards  sent  out,  together  with  a 
pastoral  letter,  to  all  his  people.  These  papers  doubtless  were 
influenced  by  his  recent  intercourse  with  his  brother  bishops 
and  with  the  Church  at  large.  After  calling  for  thanks  for  peace 
and  prosperity  in  the  Church,  and  noting  duties  still  undone 
and  opportunities  neglected,  the  bishop  went  on  to  make  a  direct 
missionary  plea.  "In  all  those  noble  efforts  which  are  daily 
making,  to  diffuse  the  light  of  the  holy  Scriptures  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  salvation  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the  earth 
shall  our  Church  only  take  no  part?  .  .  .  Far  from  send- 
ing the  Gospel  to  distant  regions,  we  neglect  to  promulgate  it 
among  ourselves.     .      .      .     This  is  an  era  of  Gospel  light  sur- 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  31 

passed  only  by  that  of  its  first  propagation.      .  .      May  it 

tend  to  unite  all  Christians  in  faith  and  affection,  in  doctrine 
and  practice." 

The  bishop  went  on  to  say  that  no  "greater  stigma"  was 
attached  to  the  established  Church  of  England  than  "her  apathy 
in  regard  to  propagating  her  faith";  that  while  her  children 
abound  in  "all  manner  of  charities,"  in  "this  work  of  evange- 
lists, they  were  unaccountably  deficient";  that  in  but  few 
British  colonies  till  very  lately  had  Episcopacy  been  "completely 
organized,"  that  "in  these  states,  before  the  Revolution,  while 
other  denominations  of  Christians  enjoyed  the  full  establishment 
of  their  respective  systems,  the  Episcopal  Churches  were  not 
permitted  to  have  a  Bishop."  But  now  the  Church  of  England 
was  "awaking  from  this  lethargy  and  arising  in  her  strength," 
while  "  'our  portion'  of  Christ's  Church"  remained  "delinquent" 
still  — "even  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United 
States."  Yet  in  several  other  States  efforts  to  spread  the  Gospel 
were  being  made.  "Where  then  shall  we  find  a  Christian  com- 
munity, so  little  engaged  in  extending  its  faith  as  ours  of  the 
Eastern  Diocese?"  The  Church  of  Rome  had  too  justly  censured 
Protestants  who  had  left  to  them  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel. 
The  Moravians  had  been  a  solitary  exception.  The  time  had 
come  for  the  Church  in  the  Eastern  Diocese  to  act. 

"Let  us  do  the  work  of  evangelists,"  said  the  bishop  to  his 
clergy.  "Let  the  work  begin  in  our  hearts,  and  in  our  families; 
let  it  extend  to  our  friends  and  neighbors,  and  to  the  humblest 
cottages  of  our  respective  parishes;  nor  let  it  cease  till  it  per- 
vades our  country,  and  all  the  ends  of  the  world  have  seen  the 
salvation  of  our  God." 

A  man  of  like  spirit  with  Bishop  Griswold,  whose  alert  and 
active  mind  was  absorbed  in  the  effort  to  bring  Christ  to  the 
heathen  world,  was  the  Rev.  Josiah  Pratt,  then  Secretary  of  the 
Church  Missionary  Society  of  England.  Peace  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  was  declared  in  December,  1814, 
and  in  the  following  August  Mr.  Pratt  sent  a  letter  in  behalf  of 
foreign   missions  to   "several   of  the  leading  members  of  the 


32  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States."  Bishop  Griswold  was 
the  first  to  reply.  In  July,  1816,  he  sent  a  warm-hearted, 
sjrmpathetic  response,  together  with  a  copy  of  his  charge  and 
pastoral  letter  of  1814.  "Most  gladly  would  we  unite  with 
you,"  he  wrote,  "in  sending  missions  to  Africa  and  the  East, 
and  hope  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  some  of  our 
pious  young  men  will  be  zealously  disposed  to  engage  in  that 
interesting  work.  At  present,  however,  we  have  not  funds  nor 
other  means  of  doing  much  in  any  missionary  labor;  not  even 
of  supplying  the  wants  of  our  own  country.  It  would  never  be 
credited  on  your  side  of  the  water,  what  multitudes  there  are  in 
these  United  States  destitute  of  the  Gospel  ministrations." 

In  November  of  the  same  year  Bishop  Griswold  wrote 
again,  at  which  time  he  probably  suggested  the  Rev.  Joseph  R. 
Andrus,  one  of  his  deacons  of  1815  and  just  ordained  priest,  as 
a  missionary  candidate.  Mr.  Pratt  printed  the  bishop's  first 
letter  with  extracts  from  his  charge  and  pastoral  in  The  Mis- 
sionary Register  of  1816,  and  in  1817  told  of  the  Society's  plan 
to  open  four  mission  stations  in  Ceylon.  For  these  three  Church 
of  England  clergymen  had  been  found,  and  if  a  fourth  did  not 
offer,  the  Society  might  send  Mr.  Andrus.  The  quota  was 
made  good  from  England,  however,  and  Mr.  Pratt  wrote  that  it 
would  be  much  more  likely  to  awaken  missionary  zeal  in  the 
United  States  if  the  Church  there  could  have  a  missionary 
society  of  its  own,  and  the  Church  Missionary  Society  offered 
to  give  £200  to  encourage  such  an  undertaking. 

It  was  November,  1820,  before  Bishop  Griswold  again  wrote 
to  Mr.  Pratt,  but  though  long  delayed  the  letter  brought  the 
good  news  that  in  May  of  that  year  a  society  "for  Foreign  and 
Domestic  Missions"  had  been  formed.  "In  compliance  with  the 
wishes  of  some  individuals,"  the  bishop  added,  Domestic  Mis- 
sion- are  embraced;  but  the  main  object  of  its  promoters  is  the 
propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts."  No  doubt  he  was 
among  those  who  in  the  following  year  were  disappointed  when 
the  revised  constitution  of  the  Society  was  finally  adopted, 
with  the  name  of  the  "Domestic  and  Foreign  Missionary  Society." 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  33 

Mr.  Andrus  never  went  as  a  missionary  in  connection  with 
either  the  English  Society  or  our  own.  This  was  the  time  of 
the  formation  of  the  American  Colonization  Society,  and  Bishop 
Griswold  wrote  Mr.  Pratt  in  no  hopeful  vein  of  the  conditions 
that  had  led  to  it.  The  advance  of  Christ's  Kingdom  is  "not  a 
little  impeded,"  he  said,  "by  the  prevalence  of  unsound  doc- 
trine in  one  part  of  these  States,  and  of  slavery  in  the  other.  The 
latter  evil  is  evidently  increasing."  Mr.  Andrus  went  to  West 
Africa  as  one  of  the  earliest  agents  of  the  Colonization  Society, 
and  his  bishop  hoped  he  might  be  able  to  co-operate  with  the 
English  missionaries  already  settled  there.  The  bishop's  in- 
terest continued  a  potent  force  in  behalf  of  Foreign  Missions 
from  that  time  on.  He  ordained  the  Rev.  J.  J.  Robertson  who 
sailed  from  Boston  on  January  1,  1829,  to  pioneer  in  Greece, 
and  the  Rev.  Horatio  Southgate  who  adventured  to  Turkey  and 
Persia  in  1835.  It  was  one  of  his  laymen,  Mr.  E.  A.  Newton  of 
Pittsfield,  Massachusetts,  who,  in  1834,  moved  in  the  Board  of 
Missions  that  a  mission  should  be  opened  in  China,  and  one  of 
his  own  Massachusetts  students,  the  Rev.  S.  H.  Tyng,  ordained 
by  him  in  1821,  who  in  1835  came  from  his  Philadelphia  parish 
to  New  York  to  see  the  first  China  missionaries  start  upon  their 
way.  It  was  a  man  ordained  by  him,  and  who  succeeded  him  in 
St.  Peter's  parish,  Salem,  the  Rev.  J.  A.  Vaughan,  who,  from 
1836  to  1841,  served  as  Secretary  r)f  the  Foreign  Committee  of 
the  Board  of  Missions,  and  in  the  great  missionary  year,  1835, 
the  bishop  himself  wrote  the  hymn  still  retained  in  the  Church's 
Hymnal,  "Holy  Father,  Great  Creator,"  whose  closing  stanza 
reads • 

"God  the  Lord,  through  every  nation 
Let  Thy  wondrous  mercies  shine ! 
In  the  song  of  Thy  salvation 
Every  tongue  and  race  combine ' 
Great  Jehovah, 
Form  our  hearts  and  make  them  Thine." 

Along  with  his  interest  in  missions  ran  Bishop  Griswold 's 
keen  sense  of  the  need  of  a  consecrated  and  well  trained  clergy. 


34  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

Directly  upon  his  consecration  he  had  described  the  kind  of  men 
needed  —  of  ApostoHc  zeal,  willing  to  plant  before  they  reaped, 
to  go  into  the  spiritual  wilderness  and  cultivate  it,  to  spend  and 
be  spent  for  God's  glory  and  the  salvation  of  men,  to  seek  first 
the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness.  "One  such,"  he 
said,  "is  worth  twenty  drones  in  the  Sacred  Ministry."  There- 
fore, when,  in  1817,  the  General  Convention  established  a 
General  Theological  Seminary,  he  was  fully  in  accord  with 
the  plan.  No  doubt  he  seconded  Bishop  Brownell's  efforts 
that  it  should  be  conducted  in  New  Haven,  and  shared  his 
disappointment  when,  after  a  two  years'  trial,  it  was  returned 
to  New  York,  He  recognized  that  New  York  Churchmen  were 
the  largest  contributors  to  the  expenses  of  the  school  and  that 
it  was  only  reasonable  that  the  institution  should  be  in  that  city ; 
but  the  distance  was  great,  the  cost  of  travel  was  large,  his 
candidates  were  poor,  and  underneath  all  else  must  have  been 
the  feeling,  that  for  work  in  New  England  the  best  training  could 
be  given  on  New  England  soil.  So  many  candidates  for  the 
ministry  in  the  Eastern  Diocese  read  under  one  or  another 
of  the  parish  clergy,  or  were  trained  under  the  direct  care  of  the 
bishop  himself. 

In  1830,  in  answer  to  a  renewed  call  from  St.  Peter's,  Salem, 
endorsed  by  nineteen  of  the  clergy  of  Massachusetts,  the  Bishop 
at  last  gave  up  his  Bristol  parish  and  removed  to  Salem.  He 
then  asked  his  convention  to  establish  a  theological  school  for 
the  Eastern  Diocese,  and  in  1832  repeated  the  request.  The 
Rev.  Geo.  W.  Doane,  at  that  time  rector  of  Trinity  Church, 
Boston,  wrote  the  bishop  that  the  Rev.  John  Henry  Hopkins 
might  take  the  combined  duty  of  assistant  in  that  parish  and 
professor  in  the  proposed  school.  This  arrangement  was  made. 
Mr.  Hopkins  came,  three  students  entered  the  school,  and  the 
work  began.  But  the  same  year  Mr.  Doane  was  elected  and 
consecrated  Bishop  for  New  Jersey  and  Mr.  Hopkins  for  Ver- 
mont, and  the  school  was  dissolved.  In  1834-1835  a  fund  of 
$104,000  was  raised  towards  its  re-establishment,  and  the  Rev. 
Alonzo  Potter  was  urged  to  return  from  Schenectady,  whither  he 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  35 

had  gone  in  1831,  to  take  charge;  but  he  declined,  and  the 
project  was  again  abandoned.  It  was  then  that  one  of  the 
clergy  said,  "The  best  theological  seminary  which  the  Eastern 
Diocese  ever  had  —  perhaps  the  best  any  diocese  will  ever  have  — 
was  in  Bishop  Griswold's  own  house  and  parish  at  Bristol." 

There  among  his  students  were  J.  P.  K.  Henshaw  who 
succeeded  him  as  bishop  in  Rhode  Island,  John  Bristed,  his 
successor  in  St.  Michael's  Parish,  James  W.  Eastburn,  brother  of 
the  Rev.  Manton  Eastburn  consecrated  his  assistant  bishop, 
Stephen  H.  Tyng,  Rector  of  the  Church  of  the  Epiphany,  Phila- 
delphia, and,  later,  of  St.  George's  Church,  New  York.  Mr. 
Tyng  has  left  an  account  of  Bishop  Griswold's  practical  method 
of  instruction  in  Pastoral  Theology; 

"When  I  had  been  in  Bristol  about  a  week,"  he  writes, 
"the  Bishop  observed,  'I  wish  you  to  attend  a  meeting  with  me 
in  the  country  this  evening,  and  I  will  call  for  you  after  tea.' 
He  came  accordingly,  and  we  walked  about  a  mile  to  a  neigh- 
borhood called  'The  Neck,'  where  the  rooms  of  a  farmhouse  were 
entirely  filled  with  people  waiting  his  arrival.  He  sat  down 
among  them  at  a  little  table,  and,  after  singing  and  prayer, 
expounded  to  them  a  chapter  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 
I  cannot  describe  the  impression  which  this  occasion 
made  on  me.  The  condescension  and  meekness  with  which  he 
thus  familiarly  walked  out  with  a  youth  like  me;  the  perfectly 
unassuming  manner  in  which  he  appeared  among  the  rustic 
congregation  .  .  .  the  simplicity  and  tenderness  of  his 
discourse;  the  tremulous  sweetness  of  his  voice,  as  he  raised 
the  tune  in  singing;  were  all  such  new  and  striking  facts  to  me, 
that  I  was  surprised  as  well  as  delighted  with  the  whole  occasion. 
The  Bishop  opened  the  service  with  a  selection  of  prayers  from  the 
Liturgy,  and  closed  it  with  an  extemporaneous  prayer,  in  which 
duty  he  excelled  almost  all  whom  I  have  ever  heard. 

"His  weekly  meetings  were  generally  of  this  social  and 
private  character.  There  were  sometimes  two  or  more  such 
meetings  each  week.  .  .  .  When  he  was  at  home  he 
attended  them  himself;    though,  even  then  he  required  of  his 


36  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

theological  students  frequent  addresses  and  exhortations  to 
the  people  assembled;  so  that  his  ministry  was  not  only  a  con- 
tinued example  and  source  of  instruction,  but  also  in  the  oppor- 
tunity for  practical  exercise  in  the  duties  of  their  future  ministry 
which  he  gave  them,  of  the  greatest  service  in  perfecting  their 
qualifications,  and  in  forming  their  habits  for  future  usefulness." 

But  his  recruits  for  the  ministry  were  not  always  gained 
without  difficulty.  Two  cases  of  especial  interest  occurred  dur- 
ing Bishop  Griswold's  episcopate,  one  of  which  drew  the  atten- 
tion of  the  entire  Church.  A  New  York  physician  had  been 
moved  to  give  up  his  profession  in  order  to  devote  himself  to  the 
work  of  the  ministry,  and  had  been  received  in  his  diocese  as  a 
candidate  for  Holy  Orders.  Later,  because  of  his  use  of  intem- 
perate language  against  a  fellow  Churchman  of  prominence  in 
New  York,  Bishop  Hobart  refused  to  ordain  him,  and  notified 
his  brother  bishops  of  his  action.  After  some  delay,  in  1823, 
the  rejected  candidate  applied  for  admission  in  the  Eastern 
Diocese.  This  application  brought  out  two  interesting  points. 
It  was  the  first  time  since  the  organization  of  the  Church  in  the 
United  States  that  a  candidate  refused  in  one  diocese  had  ap- 
plied in  another;  could  the  second  diocese  grant  the  request? 
And,  while  the  candidate  offered  for  the  Eastern  Diocese,  it  was 
the  Standing  Committee  of  a  Diocese  within  the  limits  of  the 
Eastern  Diocese  (Rhode  Island)  which  acted  upon  the  matter. 

For  a  year  a  correspondence  was  carried  on  between  Bishop 
Griswold  and  Bishop  Hobart,  the  latter  furnishing  the  former  a 
long  argument  from  Bishop  White  also,  but  not  in  such  terms  as 
Bishop  Griswold  understood  to  include  this  particular  case. 
The  Rector  of  St.  Paul's  Chufch,  Boston,  and  St.  George's 
Church,  New  York,  wrote  warmly  in  behalf  of  the  candidate, 
while  on  the  other  hand  there  came  to  Bishop  Griswold  from 
"a  weak  member  of  our  Zion"  in  Beaufort,  South  Carolina,  this 
earnest  remonstrance:  "That  you  would  willingly  give  any 
cause  of  offence  to  a  brother  Bishop  is  not  for  a  moment  to  be 
conceived.  Or  that  you  would  deliberately  degrade  or  lessen 
authority  is  not  to  be  believed.     But  in  fact  will  you  not  do  both 


ALEXANDER  VIETS  GRISWOLD  37 

by  giving  Orders  to  Dr.  ?     .      .      .      Who  will  be  the  first 

to  break  the  golden  chain  of  harmony  which  has  existed  among 
the  American  Bishops?  And  what  would  be  the  consequences 
if  this  should  take  place?  .  .  .  Suppose  the  individual 
be  an  injured  man,  is  it  not  better  that  one  man  should  suffer 
than  that  such  a  bold  adventure  should  be  made?" 

Bishop  Griswold  was  not  the  man  to  be  influenced  by  this 
appeal.  He  could  not  yield  the  point  that  in  every  instance 
one  bishop  must  abide  by  the  judgment  of  another.  "A  Bishop's 
authority,  we  know,"  he  wrote  Bishop  Hobart  on  July  9,  1823, 
"is  confined  to  his  own  Diocese.  It  is  decidedly  my  opinion 
that  a  candidate's  being  rejected  by  one  Bishop  does  not,  in 
itself,  debar  him  of  the  right  of  applying  to,  and  being  received 
by  another ;  for  such  a  rule  might  sanction  the  most  intolerable . 
oppression." 

From  this  decision  he  did  not  waver.  On  July  25,  1823, 
the  candidate  was  received  by  the  Standing  Committee  of  Rhode 
Island.  In  February,  1824,  the  fellow  Churchman  who  had  been 
abused  declared  his  belief  that  there  was  no  malignity  in  the 
attack  but  that  its  heat  had  been  aroused  through  the  misrepre- 
sentation of  others;  that  he  should  be  "extremely  sorry  if  the 
occurrence  should  either  retard  the  advancement  or  afifect  the 
usefulness"  of  his  opponent.  "Indeed,"  he  added,  "I  do  not 
think  it  ought."  And  on  August  15,  1824,,  in  St.  Michael's, 
Bristol,   the  ordination  took  place. 

Meanwhile  a  similar  case  was  also  going  on.  A  lawyer  of 
high  standing,  a  man  of  fine  talents  and  splendid  scholarship, 
of  "unquestionable  piety  and  unimpeachable  morals"  wrote  to 
Bishop  Hobart  of  his  intention  of  giving  up  his  profession  in 
order  to  study  for  the  ministry.  The  Bishop  discouraged  the 
idea,  but  feeling  himself  led  by  a  Divine  call,  the  lawyer  removed 
his  residence  from  the  Diocese  of  New  York  to  that  of  Rhode 
Island  and  began  his  studies  under  Bishop  Griswold.  But  the 
Standing  Committee  which  had  just  accepted  one  candidate, 
without  the  same  cause  for  indecision  —  but  possibly  perplexed 
and  uncertain  as  to  the  propriety  of  its  course  —  acted  unfav- 


38  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

orably  upon  this  second  request,  and  it  was  only  after  "pro- 
tracted, most  tedious  and  most  unreasonable  delays,"  that  this 
candidate  was  finally  received  by  the  Diocese  of  Vermont. 

In  Massachusetts  a  greater  disturbance  arose  when,  in 
1832,  the  Standing  Committee  of  that  Diocese  acted  upon  the 
canon  of  the  General  Convention  of  1826.  and  refused  to  the 
students  of  its  newly  established  theological  school  its  consent 
to  a  dispensation  from  the  full  three  years  of  study  required  by 
that  canon,  which  dispensation  Bishop  Griswold  had  advised  and 
allowed.  Those  conducting  the  school  were  anxious  no  doubt 
that  its  requirements  should  equal  those  called  for  in  the  General 
Theological  Seminary;  but  feeling  in  the  diocese  was  such  as 
to  result  in  the  election  of  a  new  set  of  members  to  the  Standing 
Committee  and  of  new  delegates  to  the  approaching  General 
Convention,  who  were  in  harmony  with  the  views  of  Bishop 
Griswold.  But  this  was  a  matter  of  personal  influence  only. 
Bishop  Griswold 's  position  in  the  territory  over  which  he  presided 
as  bishop  was  unique.  He  would  attend  the  annual  conventions 
of  the  Dioceses  of  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Vermont,  New 
Hampshire  and  Maine,  preside,  and  listen  to  their  proceedings 
and  give  his  counsel;  but  he  saved  all  his  authoritative  and 
official  addresses  for  the  conventions  of  the  Eastern  Diocese. 
He  urged  the  few  matters  that  held  the  Church  people  of  that 
diocese  together  by  a  slender  thread  —  the  support  of  the 
episcopate,  the  spread  of  missions,  the  formation  of  a  missionary 
society  in  every  parish,  the  distribution  of  Prayer  Books,  the 
development  of  Sunday  Schools  —  but  he  had  to  watch  with  a 
certain  aloofness  the  growing  under  current  of  restlessness 
tending  to  independence  in  each  separate  diocese  within  his 
own,  and  to  guide  with  an  unselfish  and  generous  devotion  all 
steps  towards  that  division  which  was  urged  in  1822  and  again  in 
1827,  when  he  claimed  that  as  soon  as  possible  Vermont  should 
have  a  bishop. 

And  his  cautious,  unaggressive  methods  could  not  always 
save  him  from  reproach.  When,  in  1825,  trouble  arose  between 
the  rector  and  people  of  St.  Paul's  Parish,  Boston,  and  he  was 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  39 

called  upon  to  preside  over  a  council  of  the  Massachusetts  clergy- 
concerning  the  matter,  the  rector  accused  him  of  "an  unwarrant- 
able stretch  of  power,  or  episcopal  prerogative."  An  attack 
could  hardly  have  been  less  deserved.  The  convention  of 
Massachusetts  completely  exonerated  him,  declaring  that  he 
was  always  discreet,  meek,  faithful  and  modest.  The  bishop 
himself  had  said,  "I  wish  that  our  bishops  might  always  be  poor 
and  have  no  more  power  than  is  necessary  for  the  discharge  of 
the  proper  duties  of  their  office.  .  .  .  If  it  is  only  a  place 
of  labor  and  usefulness,  without  the  reward  of  worldly  honors 
and  emolument,  there  will  be  little  danger  of  any  one  seeking  it, 
or  accepting  it,  but  from  desire  to  do  good." 

DIFFERENCES    AND    GROWTH 

It  was  now  fourteen  years  since  he  had  been  consecrated, 
and  they  were  years  in  which  differences  of  conviction  and 
practice  had  sprung  up,  deepened  and  spread.  During  their 
course,  in  1823,  Bishop  Hobart  had  visited  England  and  had 
won  the  heart  of  the  young  curate,  Walter  Farquhar  Hook, 
later  the  noted  Vicar  of  Leeds.  The  young  man  who  was  long- 
ing at  this  time  to  be  "dabbling  in  High  Churchery,"  was  de- 
lighted with  the  Apostolic  Church  in  America,  and  hoped  that 
the  American  Bishop's  visit  would  cause  "episcopacy  to  be 
better  understood  in  England."  In  the  next  twenty  years  Dean 
Hook  himself,  as  he  kept  his  steady  middle  course,  watched 
friends  and  associates  pass  by  him,  as  the  leaders  in  the  Oxford 
Movement  and  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  created  a  strong  tide 
which  swept  English  Churchmen  to  and  fro,  and  had  a  marked 
effect  upon  the  Church  in  America  as  well,  and  on  no  part  of 
that  Church  more  marked  than  in  the  Eastern  Diocese. 

Church  papers,  fanning  the  varying  tempers  of  the  time, 
rapidly  increased  and  multiplied.  The  Churchman's  Reposi- 
tory for  the  Eastern  Diocese,  which  appeared  in  1820,  in  New- 
buryport,  was  soon  removed  to  Boston,  and  renamed  The 
Gospel  Advocate.     Bishop  Griswold  commended  it  to  his  conven- 


40  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

tion.  It  was  his  "decided  opinion"  that  "to  do  much  good  and 
obtain  the  patronage  of  the  pious"  the  paper  must  have  for  its 
chief  object  "the  glory  of  God  in  the  salvation  of  men."  "Let 
us  also,"  he  said,  "be  careful  to  manifest  a  spirit  of  candor, 
charity    and    Christian   love.      .      .  We    had    never    more 

occasion  for  the  exercise  of  forbearance." 

But  the  paper  did  not  preserve  this  standard.  In  September. 
1822,  an  attack  was  made  on  the  prayer  meetings,  so  dear  to  the 
bishop's  heart  and  which  he  had  been  first  to  introduce  into  the 
diocese.  Controversial  articles  appeared  from  time  to  time, 
and  when  at  last,  in  1825,  the  bishop  himself  took  up  the  cause 
his  articles  were  refused  by  The  Gospel  Advocate,  and  were  later 
printed  in  The  Episcopal  Register  of  Vermont. 

This  was  perhaps  the  first  decided  and  most  public  expres- 
sion of  a  divergence  of  views  between  the  bishop  and  some 
among  his  clergy,  and  it  kindled  a  flame  in  which  his  biographer 
says,  his  "patient  love  of  peace  .  .  .  burnt,  martyr-like, 
for  more  than  twenty  of  the  last  years  of  his  life." 

The  General  Convention  of  1826  suggested  changes  in  the 
Prayer  Book,  which  were  referred  back  to  the  different  dioceses 
for  action.  Bishop  Griswold  objected  to  the  particular  changes 
proposed,  which  had  to  do  with  the  Preface  to  the  Confirmation 
Office  and  in  the  rubric  immediately  following  the  Office  of  the 
Holy  Communion.  "My  wish,"  the  bishop  wrote,  "is  to  make 
none,  or  to  make  all  that  are  needed."  He  was  accused  of  having 
shown  a  want  of  attachment  to  the  Liturgy  and  the  Church, 
and  in  1827  defended  himself  before  his  own  convention.  "I 
am  well  aware,"  he  said,  "of  the  delicacy  and  difficulties  of  this 
subject,  and  how  necessary  it  is,  if  we  would  be  accounted 
Churchmen  to  eulogize  the  Liturgy,  and  to  deprecate  as  sacrilege 
even  the  least  alteration.  But  on  this  point  I  have  little  anxiety. 
Nursed,  as  I  have  been,  from  earliest  infancy,  in  the  bosom  of 
this  Church,  having  passed  my  whole  life  among  Episcopalians, 
as  much  so  perhaps  as  any  man  of  my  age  in  this  country  living, 
and  having  been  above  forty  years  a  member  of  its  communion, 
I  have  long  since  imbibed  a  deep  prepossession   (not  to   say 


ALEXANDER  VIETS  GRISWOLD  41 

prejudice)  in  its  favor.  .  .  .  For  many  years  I  have 
endeavored  impartially  to  examine  the  claims  of  our  Church 
to  Scriptural  orthodoxy  and  primitive  order,  and  the  exami- 
nation has  confirmed  me  in  the  belief  that  her  claims  are  well 
founded.  ...  I  humbly  trust  that  I  have  also,  in  some 
small  degree  imbibed  that  truly  liberal  spirit  of  forbearance 
and  charity,  which  our  Church,  more  than  any  other  Christian 
community  on  earth,  inculcates,  and  which  is  not  the  least 
among  the  many  proofs  that  she  is,  indeed,  the  Church  of  Christ." 

But  forbearance  and  charity  were  not  at  that  time  the 
Church's  distinguishing  characteristics.  From  July,  1828,  to 
August.  1829,  Bishop  Griswold  printed  in  The  Episcopal  Register 
a  series  of  articles  upon  Prayer  Book  changes  and  his  views  of 
rendering  the  service,  and  these  were  strongly  assailed  by  The 
Gospel  Messenger  of  Western  New  York. 

The  five  years'  rectorate  of  the  Rev.  Alonzo  Potter  in  St. 
Paul's  Church,  Boston  did  something  to  harmonize  discordant 
elements.  He  came  from  the  Diocese  of  New  York  in  1826, 
and  for  the  first  time  Bishop  Griswold  held  the  Institution 
office  and  Bishop  Hobart  preached  the  sermon.  In  1828  Mr. 
Potter  voiced  to  Bishop  Griswold  the  wish  of  some  of  the  clergy 
that  they  might  meet  more  often  for  informal  conference.  In 
his  convention  address  of  that  year  the  bishop  congratulated 
his  diocese  on  "the  reverence  which  clergy  and  people  now 
generally  have  for  the  order  and  worship  of  the  Church  and  for 
the  General  Convention,"  and  was  thankful  to  have  "a  body  of 
clergy  so  decidedly  attached  to  the  Episcopal  Church  and  so 
zealous  in  support  of  its  distinctive  principles  without  any 
leaning  to  Popery  or  abandonment  of  Protestant  principles  or 
neglect  of  Evangelical  truth."  He  urged  them  to  a  greater 
interest  in  the  general  missionary  work  and  referred  to  the 
rivalry  existing  between  the  Domestic  and  Foreign  Committees 
which  then  represented  to  a  marked  degree  the  differing  parties 
within  the  Church.  "Some  we  may  fear  "  said  the  bishop, 
"who  pass  for  pious,  zealous  Christians,  had  rather  that  man- 
kind should  remain  in  their  sins  than  that  those,  whom  they 


42  .  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

dislike,  should  be  the  instruments  of  changing  their  hearts  and 
bringing  them  to  Christ." 

"Even  different  sects,"  he  added,  "should  not  view  each 
other  as  rivals,  still  less  as  opponents;  but  as  all  laboring  in  the 
same  good  work,  each  according  to  his  knowledge,  faith  and 
sense  of  duty." 

And  again,  of  tendencies  within  ourselves  he  said  — •  in  this 
showing  his  kinship  to  Dean  Hook —  "There  are  two  extremes 
in  which  we  naturally  and  too  often  err.  .  .  .  The  one  is, 
undue  reliance  upon  religious  rites,  and  .  .  .  the  other  is 
too  little  reverence  for  the  sacraments  and  other  institutions 
of  Christ  and  his  Apostles.  These  are  the  Scylla  and  Charybdis 
of  religious  life.  They  are  perils  to  which  we  of  the  Episcopal 
Church,  with  all  our  best  intentions  to  steer  a  middle  cotirse,  are 
much  exposed." 

The  bishop  seemed  to  be  happy  in  the  thought  that  the 
clergy  of  his  diocese  as  a  whole  were  keeping  to  this  middle  course, 
but  when,  in  1832,  the  Rev.  James  S.  Stone  came  to  Boston  as 
Rector  of  St.  Paul's,  the  convention  of  the  Massachusetts  Dio- 
cese revealed  to  him  that  "he  had  approached  a  mountain  which 
from  a  distance  had  seemed  quiet  and  beautiful,"  only  to  find  it 
"covered  with  a  somewhat  large  proportion  of  the  lava  and 
ashes  to  be  thrown  up  by  its  sudden  volcanic  explosion." 

It  was  in  this  convention  that  the  new  delegation  to  General 
Convention  was  chosen.  Vermont  had  just  withdrawn  from  the 
Eastern  Diocese  and  elected  Mr.  Hopkins  as  Bishop.  At  the 
same  time  Bishop  Chase  had  resigned  Ohio  and  the  Rev.  Charles 
P.  Mcllvaine  had  been  elected  in  his  stead.  The  question  of  the 
right  of  a  bishop  to  give  up  his  diocese  came  up  in  General 
Convention,  and  it  was  the  influence  of  Bishop  Griswold  upon 
the  new  Massachusetts  delegation  which  gave  the  deciding  vote 
in  these  mooted  questions. 

Indeed  it  was  affection  for  their  bishop  and  respect  for  his 
character  that  held  his  diocese  together.  In  withdrawing,  the 
Convention  of  Vermont  had  sent  him  the  message  that  "this 
crisis  has  indeed  been  delayed  through  an  extreme  unwillingness 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  43 

to  deprive  ourselves  of  the  ministrations  of  a  Bishop,  whom  we 
so  truly  revere  and  love."  When  New  Hampshire  withdrew 
in  1838  and  Maine  in  1839,  the  withdrawal  was  but  nominal; 
they  still  remained  under  Bishop  Griswold's  care. 

In  1832  the  Rev.  Theodore  Edson  of  St.  Ann's  Church, 
Lowell,  again  brought  forward  the  convocation  plan.  It  had 
been  adopted  with  good  results  in  Rhode  Island,  and,  in  a  lesser 
degree,  in  the  eastern  part  of  Massachusetts.  In  the  western 
part  the  clergy  had  formed  an  association  of  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent kind.  The  bishop  commended  both;  the  meeting,  and 
not  the  method  of  meeting,  for  mutual  helpfulness,  was  the 
important  point.  New  missionary  interest  resulted  from  these 
convocations,  and  in  1836  the  Massachusetts  Convention  sub- 
stituted for  its  Episcopal  Missionary  Society,  a  Board  of  Mis- 
sions. 

PRESIDING   BISHOP 

In  1835  Bishop  Griswold  was  finally  persuaded  to  give  up 
parochial  ties  and  to  confine  himself  to  the  duties  of  the  diocese. 
He  removed  to  Boston  and  there  made  his  home  for  the  remainder 
of  his  life.  On  July  17,  1836,  Bishop  White  of  Pennsylvania 
died,  and  according  to  the  rule  adopted  in  1832  by  the  House  of 
Bishops,  Bishop  Griswold  becarne  Presiding  Bishop  of  the 
Church.  He  had  opposed  the  suggestion  of  Primus,  made  by 
some  of  his  brother  bishops,  and  now  that  this  position  which 
had  been  authorized  by  the  Church  became  his,  he  shrank  from 
it  and  its  responsibilities.  What  he  must  do  he  would  do  to  the 
best  of  his  abilities,  but  if  he  could  avoid  office,  he  would  do  so, 
especially  if  "he  had  any  reason  for  believing  that  he  was  not 
wanted,  or  was  not  welcome." 

In  response  to  a  letter  from  Bishop  Onderdonk  of  New  York, 
he  wrote,  on  December  22,  1836,  "I  doubt  the  wisdom  of  making 
the  oldest  of  our  body  the  presiding  Bishop.  .  .  .  By  this 
rule  (his  duties)  will  frequently,  as  in  the  present  instance,  fall 
upon  one  who  resides  far  from  the  center;  rendering  the  dis- 
charge of  them  less  convenient  to  him  and  to  the  Churches 


44  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

generally.  I  would  prefer  that  he  should  be  the  Bishop  of  New 
York  or  Philadelphia.  And  (as  in  the  present  instance)  these 
duties  will  often,  if  not  always,  fall  upon  one  who,  by  reason  of 
old  age,  is  least  capable  of  performing  them."  "But,"  he  con- 
tinued, "we  must  take  things  as  they  are.  Whatever  may  be 
my  feelings,  I  desire,  far  as  I  am  able,  to  perform  every  duty, 
which  may  not  as  well,  or  better,  be  done  by  another  person." 

Bishop  Griswold  accepted  conditionally  the  invitations 
contained  in  Bishop  Onderdonk's  letter  to  attend  approaching 
meetings  of  the  Board  of  Missions  and  the  Trustees  of  the 
General  Theological  Seminary,  but  suggested  that  considering 
"his  very  advanced  age"  and  his  possible  inability  to  attend,  a 
substitute  be  appointed  to  preach  the  missionary  sermon  and  to 
address  the  students.  He  then  went  on  to  a  mention  of  the 
Pastoral  Letter  of  the  House  of  Bishops,  which  for  many  suc- 
ceeding General  Conventions  had  been  prepared  by  Bishop 
White.  "Surely,"  he  wrote,  "this  will  not  henceforth  be  con- 
sidered as  the  duty,  ex -officio,  of  the  senior  Bishop.  For  several 
good  reasons  I  shall  decline  it."  And  he  proposed  that  the 
House  of  Bishops  appoint  a  committee  for  the  purpose,  to 
prepare  and  present  the  letter  of  1838. 

This  proposal  was  not  acted  upon.  The  new  Presiding 
Bishop  prepared  that  Pastoral,  and  the  one  also  presented  in 
1841,  at  the  last  General  Convention  held  before  his  death. 
This  convention  occurred  at  a  time  when  party  spirit  was 
running  high.  The  heat  of  controversy  in  the  American  Church 
surpassed  what  was  experienced  in  England.  The  most  fervent 
of  the  Evangelicals  looked  to  Bishop  Griswold  for  a  sharply 
defined  presentation  of  the  views  which  seemed  to  them  vitally 
important.  But  he  was  not  the  man  to  use  his  office  of  Pre- 
siding Bishop  for  the  upholding  of  a  party  standard.  He  took 
for  his  subject,  "The  Doctrine  of  our  Church  on  the  Article  of 
Justification  by  Faith,  in  connection  with  that  on  the  necessity 
and  place  of  Good  Works."  and  won  such  "an  expression  of 
universal  approbation"  as  led  him  to  fear  he  had  not  clearly 
expressed   his   views. 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  45 

Between  the  years  1838  and  1841  Bishop  Griswold  carried 
on  correspondence  with  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  and 
York,  the  Primus  of  Scotland,  and  the  Bishops  of  Montreal, 
Nova  Scotia,  Jamaica  and  the  Barbadoes,  with  regard  to  estab- 
lishing terms  of  intercommunion  with  the  Church  in  the  United 
States.  In  1840  he  added  to  the  letter  from  the  Foreign  Com- 
mittee one  of  introduction  and  instructions  to  Dr.  Robertson 
and  Mr.  Southgate,  going  out  for  the  second  time  to  the  East. 
In  this  letter  he  described  the  double  labors  before  them  "among 
a  people  of  whom  a  part  are  already  Christians,  organized  in 
regular  ancient  Churches,  btit  somewhat  divided  into  separate 
denominations,"  again  among  others,  and  they  the  dominant 
part  of  the  people,  who  are  "very  hostile  to  Christianity."  He 
hopes  that  among  pagans  and  Mahomedans,  the  missionaries 
may  win  a  greater  respect  for  our  religion  and  more  toleration 
for  it;  and  would  explain  to  the  bishops  or  other  ecclesiastical 
authorities  that  we  would  "scrupulously  avoid  all  offensive  in- 
trusion into  the  jurisdiction  of  our  Episcopal  brethren,  nor 
intermeddle  with  their  Church  affairs."  The  bishop  goes  on 
to  urge  the  position  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  as 
standing  between  the  Protestants  "opposed  to  Episcopacy, 
Confirmation  and  the  use  of  Liturgies"  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
Church  of  Rome  on  the  other,  and  adds,  "Under  such  circum- 
stances, our  thoughts  and  affections  are  particularly  directed  and 
strongly  drawn  to  our  brethren  of  the  Eastern  Churches,  who, 
we  believe,  agree  with  us  in  what  is  most  essential. 
To  their  bishops  and  other  clergy  would  we  gladly  extend  the 
right  hand  of  fellowship,  and  impart  to  them  some  portion  of 
those  good  things  which  God,  in  his  bounteous  mercy,  does  on 
us  bestow." 

Twice  in  connection  with  interests  in  the  East  Bishop 
Griswold  aroused  criticism. 

A  clergyman  who  had  lived  in  his  house,  studied  under  him, 
and  been  ordained  by  him  both  Deacon  and  Priest,  becoming 
greatly  exercised  over  conditions  in  that  part  of  the  world,  asked 
the  House  of  Bishops  to  consecrate  him  and  allow  him  to  go 


46  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

at  his  own  charges  as  a  missionary  bishop  to  the  Turks.  The 
appeal  was  refused,  and  the  young  man  resolved  to  visit  England 
and  make  a  trial  there.  He  brought  to  Bishop  Griswold  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  "the  Bishops  and  Clergy  and  faithful 
in  foreign  lands"  which  he  himself  had  written,  and  begged  his 
signature.  The  letter  was  not  at  all  to  the  bishop's  taste;  he 
had  already  advised  against  the  plan,  had  told  his  young  friend 
that  he  would  probably  injure  himself  without  giving  much 
help  to  the  Turks,  and  that  there  was  little  or  no  probability  of 
his  obtaining  Episcopal  Orders  for  such  a  mission  from  any 
source.  But  the  young  man  was  importunate,  the  bishop 
found  it  hard  to  resist  one  of  his  own  boys,  he  drew  his  pen 
through  certain  objectionable  parts  of  the  letter,  signed  his  name, 
and  finally  under  renewed  pressure,  at  the  last  moment,  added 
Bishop  to  the  signature  and  let  it  go.  He  was  bound  to  regret 
such  an  unwonted  lack  of  caution.  The  Churchman  accused 
him  of  assuming  an  aspect  of  Archepiscopal  authority  and  the 
bishop  felt  it  necessary  to  reply,  "I  never  put  my  name  to  any- 
thing with  less  willingness,  having  from  my  youth  disliked  any 
unnecessary  appearance  before  the  public." 

Again,  in  1841,  he  received  letters  from  Dr.  Robertson  and 
Mr.  Southgate,  introducing  Mar  Yohanna,  the  Nestorian  Bishop 
of  Ooroomiah  in  Persia.  Mar  Yohanna  came  to  Boston,  met 
Bishop  Griswold  in  private  and  public,  attended  service  in 
Grace  Church,  and  joined  the  bishop  and  others  in  the  Holy 
Communion.  For  this  last  circumstance  in  some  quarters  the 
Bishop  was  severely  blamed.  One  letter  in  criticism  came 
even  from  Scotland,  and  the  old  bishop  sent  a  very  warm  and 
trenchant  letter  in  response  to  the  Vermont  clergyman  who  had 
forwarded  it  to  him.  Excusing  a  delay  by  reason  of  other  engage- 
ments, he  continued:  "I  freely  acknowledge  that  I  scarcely  have 
patience  to  consider  (the  subject  of  this  letter)  at  any  time.  That 
so  much  ado  should  be  made  about  my  communing  with  one 
who  is  said  to  be  a  Nestorian  Bishop  sickens  me  at  heart  . 
I  believe  from  conversation  had  with  him  that  he  is  a  pious, 
good  man  and  a  sincere  believer  in  Jesus  Christ;  and  with  such 


_, 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  47 

I  am  ever  willing  to  commune.  Clergymen,  or  ministers,  of 
various  denominations  have  come  to  the  Lord's  Supper  when  I 
administered  it,  but  it  never  entered  my  mind  that  any  one 
would  be  so  absurd  as  to  suppose  that  it:  was  uniting  with  their 
denomination  or  acknowledging  the  validity  of  their  orders, 
or  the  soundness  of  the  faith,  or  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Churches, 
to  which  they  respectively  belonged.  I  know  not  of  any  Bishops 
of  any  Church,  whom,  as  such,  I  would  reject  from  communion; 
no,  not  even  Popish  Bishops,  whom  I  consider  as,  of  all  who 
claim  the  title,  the  most  heretical." 

CLOSING   YEARS 

But  though  his  charity  was  thus  embrasive  Bishop  Griswold 
found  it  hard  to  tolerate,  much  less  to  welcome,  changes  of 
practice  within  certain  parishes  of  his  diocese.  The  tide  of 
feeling,  which  had  subsided  after  1832,  by  1838  had  risen  to 
even  greater  heights,  and  the  bishop  felt  that,  as  he  had  refused 
the  sale  of  Church  property  to  Congregationalists  and  had 
forbidden  a  Congregational  minister  to  preach  in  a  Church 
pulpit,  so  now,  in  order  to  "steer  his  middle  course,"  he  must 
express  his  disapproval  of  matters  which  showed  a  leaning 
towards  the  other  extreme.  To  read  what  he  wrote  in  1841 
and  1842,  in  view  of  what  is  the  commonplace  in  the  Church 
in  1921,  shows  how  quickly  history  works  its  changes. 

Writing  of  two  parish  churches  lately  renovated  the  bishop 
said:  "I  was  pained  and  mortified  at  the  strange  derangement 
of  the  reading-desk  and  the  communion  table,  and  at  the  other 
exhibitions  within  the  chancel.  ...  In  regard  to  this, 
their  house  is  now  in  a  worse  state  than  any  other  Protestant 
church  that  I  ever  beheld.  .  .  .  There  was  then  (formerly) 
a  very  convenient  reading  desk.  .  .  .  Then  also  there 
was  a  communion  taHe,  very  suitable  and  in  sight  of  the  whole 
congregation.  Since,  I  have  seen  instead  an  edifice,  like  a 
Popish  altar,  above  a  flight  of  many  steps  very  inconvenient 
for  ministrations  at  the  Lord's  table.     ...      I  saw  also  a 


48  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

picture  standing  at  the  back  of  the  altar  such  as  the  Papists 
avowedly  and  very  much  worship.  .  .  .  Before  the 
Madonna,  and  on  what  should  he  the  communion  table,  I  saw 
flowers  strewn;  and  there  too  stood  candles  in  the  day  time; 
whether  they  are  ever  lighted  in  the  day  time  I  did  not  inquire. 
Formerly  the  railing  of  the  chancel  was  clear  for 
many  to  kneel  at  communion  and  confirmation,  but,  in  my  last 
visit,  it  was  exceedingly  encumbered.  The  stool,  or  place  for 
the  minister  in  preaching,  is  far  the  most  awkward  and  incon- 
venient that  I  ever  beheld.  That,  and  something  like  a  reading 
desk,  and  a  bridge  or  platform  leading  from  the  chancel  to  a 
place  where  baptism  was  performed,  occupied  so  much  of  the 
chancel  that  .  .  .  the  convenience  for  administering  con- 
firmation and  the  other  Christian  ordinances  is  very  much 
diminished.  Your  minister  wore  such  a  dress  as  I  had  never 
seen  before  .  .  .  And  never  did  I  see  a  minister  go  without 
the  railings  of  the  chancel  to  administer  Baptism." 

So  wrote  Bishop  Griswold  when  seventy-six  years  of  age, 
who  had  been  trained  from  infancy  in  the  Episcopal  Church 
and  who  had  served  in  her  ministry  for  forty-seven  years. 
Thus  we  have  from  his  long  experience  a  picture  of  the  outward 
aspect  of  the  Church  in  New  England  during  that  nearly  half 
century  of  time.  The  quickly  coming  change  was,  as  it  were, 
awaiting  his  death. 

At  the  next  convention  of  the  Eastern  Diocese  after  the 
bishop's  serious  illness  in  1837  he  called  for  an  assistant.  The 
question  at  once  arose,  would  this  assistant  be  an  assistant  for 
the  Eastern  Diocese?  That  is.  was  the  Eastern  Diocese  to  be 
continued?  Could  this  be  done?  Opinion  was  divided,  and  in 
1838  the  bishop  declared  himself  in  favor  of  elections  in  the 
different  State  conventions,  and  the  Massachusetts  convention 
proceeded  to  elect  Dr.  Alonzo  Potter,  who  declined.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1842,  this  convention  made  another  choice  equally 
dear  to  Bishop  Griswold's  heart.  This  was  of  the  Rev.  Manton 
Eastburn.  Rector  of  the  Church  of  the  Ascension,  New  York, 
who  came  to  Massachusetts  to  fill  the  double  office  of  assistant 


ALEXANDER   VIETS  GRISWOLD  49 

bishop  and  Rector  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston.  On  December 
29,  1842,  Dr.  Eastburn  was  consecrated  in  that  church  by- 
Bishop  Oris  wold.  It  was  the  last  ordaining  act  of  the  bishop's 
life.  On  February  11,  1843,  he  went  out  from  home  to  call 
upon  his  new  assistant,  and  as  he  reached  the  house,  fell  at  the 
door  and  died  upon  the  threshold. 

This  sudden  end  came  as  the  culmination  of  many  serious 
illnesses.  For  years  the  bishop  had  lived  in  the  daily  presence 
of  death.  On  this  last  morning  at  family  prayers  he  had  read, 
"For  me  to  live  is  Christ  and  to  die  is  gain.  But  if  I  live  in  the 
flesh,  this  is  the  fruit  of  my  labour;  yet  what  I  shall  choose  I 
wot  not.  For  I  am  in  a  strait  betwixt  two,  having  a  desire  to 
depart,  and  to  be  with  Christ;  which  is  far  better."  And  so 
he  arose  and  departed  thence. 

During  Bishop  Griswold's  episcopate  of  32  years,  he  assisted 
in  the  consecration  of  6  bishops,  and,  as  presiding  bishop,  was 
chief  consecrator  of  6  others.  At  the  time  of  his  own  conse- 
cration there  were  19  clergymen  within  the  limits  of  the  Eastern 
Diocese.  He  ordained  202  men  to  the  ministry,  of  whom  12* 
became  bishops,  instituted  53  rectors  into  their  parishes,  conse- 
crated 71  churches,  and  confirmed  11,299  persons.  The  dis- 
trict which  he  administered  is  now  presided  over  by  8  bishops 
and  served  by  531  clergymen  in  575  parishes  and  missions, 
numbering  113,085  communicants. 

Born  ten  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the  War  of  the  Revo- 
lution Bishop  Griswold  personally  knew  the  "deep-rooted  and 
violent  opposition  to  Episcopacy"  then  cherished  in  New  Eng- 
land by  the  Congregationalists,  who  "considered  themselves  as 
'the  standing  order'  (or  'established  religion')  to  whom  the 
ground  of  right  belonged."  Their  "abhorrence"  and  "the  fear 
of  offending  them"   had  been  chief  reasons  why  the   British 


*  Benjamin  B.  Smith  of  Kentucky;  John  P.  K.  Henshaw  of  Rhode 
Island;  Carlton  Chase  of  New  Hampshire;  Horatio  Southgate  of  Con- 
stantinople; George  Burgess  of  Maine;  Jonathan  M.  Wainwright  of 
New  York;  Henry  W.  Lee  of  Iowa;  Thomas  M.  Clark  of  Rhode  Island; 
Thomas  H.  Vail  of  Kansas;  George  M.  Randall  of  Colorado;  Mark  A.' 
DeW.  Howe  of  Central  Pennsylvania;    Alexander  Burgess  of  Quincy. 


^0  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

Government  would  not  allow  bishops  in  these  colonies.  The 
extent  of  this  "abhorrence"  can  hardly  be  believed,  but  Bishop 
Griswold  relates  a  story  told  him  of  a  "very  intelligent  and  pious 
young  man"  in  Boston,  "a  member  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Eliot's 
church."  On  reading  an  English  extract  in  the  newspaper,  to 
the  effect  that  the  Rev.  Dr. was  about  to  sail  in  his  maj- 
esty's ship ,  "to  go  out  as  the  first  bishop  of  New  England." 

this  youth  exclaimed  to  his  companion,  "  Then,  M ,  I  am  a 

dead  man!     For,  if  this  announcement  prove  true,  the  moment 

Dr. sets  his  foot  on  Long  Wharf.  Boston,  as  Bishop  of  New 

England,  /  will  shoot  him!  And  the  next  moment  I  will  surrender 
myself  into  the  hands  of  justice  with  the  certainty  of  being 
hanged!  I  feel  that,  by  such  a  deed,  I  should  be  doing  God 
service." 

Such  a  state  of  mind  was  possible  in  Boston  in  1785.  In 
the  change  effected  by  1843  a  powerful  force  was  working.  In 
1805  Henry  Ware,  Professor  of  Divinity  in  Harvard  College,  was 
drawing  a  clear-cut  line  between  the  strict  Orthodox  Congre- 
gationalism of  the  past  and  "liberal"  Unitarianism.  In  1819 
William  Ellery  Channing  preached  the  sermon  which  became 
famous  as  the  Unitarian  "Declaration  of  Independence."  In 
the  following  year  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  Congregational 
Churches  in  New  England  declared  their  adhesion  to  his  posi- 
tion. In  1825  representatives  of  those  congregations  united 
in  the  American  Unitarian  Association.  From  many  of  these 
congregations  enlisted  under  this  new  banner  individuals  cling- 
ing to  their  Orthodox  belief  drifted  off,  and  looking  elsewhere 
for  an  anchorage  to  their  faith  found  i^"  in  the  Church  they  had 
once  feared  and  despised,  built  up  in  their  midst  under  the 
holy  and  diligent  shepherding  of  the  first  and  only  Bishop  of  the 
Eastern  Diocese. 

With  the  close  of  Bishop  Griswold 's  life  that  diocese  ceased 
to  be,  but  in  its  anomolous  structure  the  student  of  the  Church's 
history  cannot  fail  to  trace  a  connection  with  the  system  of 
missionary  districts  originating  in  1835  and  of  provinces  estab- 
lished in  1907. 


ALEXANDER   VIETS   GRISWOLD  51 


PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS 


As  to  Bishop  Griswold  himself,  his  life  speaks  for  him.  The 
wife  of  his  early  years  died  in  1817,  and  ten  years  later  he  married 
again.  He  was  the  father  of  fourteen  children,  three  only  of 
whom  outlived  him.  He  was  tender  and  devoted  to  them, 
and  their  voices  and  play  in  his  study,  unless  there  was  some 
sound  of  discord,  never  disturbed  him.  But  his  incessant  cares 
and  toils  withdrew  him  from  them,  and  he  became  "by  degrees 
habitually  reserved  and  distant  in  his  intercourse  with  them." 
He  combined  with  the  colossal  industry  which  was,  perhaps, 
his  most  outstanding  characteristic,  a  "deathless  passion  for 
literature  and  science."  Upon  the  publication  of  La  Place's 
Mechanique  Celeste,  notwithstanding  the  comment  of  an  English 
reviewer  that  few  men  in  England  read  the  book,  a  Boston 
bookseller  ventured  to  import  a  single  copy.  One  day  "a 
venerable,  white-haired  man"  came  into  the  store,  picked  up  the 
volume,  became  absorbed  in  its  contents,  bought  it  and  carried 
it  away.  The  purchaser  was  Bishop  Griswold,  and  when  a 
friend  asked  him  if  this  were  true  and  if  he  read  La  Place.  "Yes," 
he  answered,  "I  have  sometimes  amused  myself  that  way;  but 
of  late,  finding  mathematics  in  danger  of  interfering  with  my 
other  duties,  I  have  laid  them  aside." 

He  was  an  extraordinarily  silent  man.  Living  profoundly 
within  himself,  when  brought  into  contact  with  others  who 
differed  from  him  in  opinion  or  practice,  the  sensitive  pride  that 
lay  beneath  his  acquired  grace  of  Christian  humility  was  often 
stirred  and  kept  him  back  from  frank  and  free  intercourse  and 
discussion. 

In  1818  when  Philander  Chase  begged  him  to  come  to 
Philadelphia  to  support  him  in  solving  difficulties  as  to  his 
consecration  and  to  take  part  in  the  service,  if  held,  he  excused 
himself,  adding,  "I  see  no  reason  for  my  going  thither.  Bishop 
White,  with  the  assistance  of  others  in  his  vicinity,  has  invariably 
now  for  many  years  performed  our  consecrations.  A  deviation 
from  this  usage  in  your  case  would  have  a  novel  appearance. 


52  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

There  are,  indeed,  some  reasons  of  serious  consideration,  why  I 
should  not  be  present." 

In  1823  when  a  committee  of  his  diocese  upon  Sunday  School 
instruction  reported  to  the  bishop  the  preparation  of  a  system 
in  connection  with  a  Connecticut  committee,  there  is  an  infer- 
ence of  the  Bishop's  satisfaction  that  this  never  became  general, 
the  system  of  the  Church's  General  Sunday  School  Union  —  in 
many  cases  combined  with  the  American  Sunday  School  Union  — 
taking  its  place. 

In  1839,  the  bishop  wrote  of  a  book  of  prayers  which  he  had 
issued  some  years  before.  "How  extensively  the  prayers  which 
I  have  published  are  used  in  my  Diocese  I  do  not  exactly  know. 
By  many  of  our  clergy,  those  by  Bishop  Hobart.  in  Sunday 
Schools  especially,  are  used  in  preference."  And  in  commenting 
on  the  opinion  that  none  but  Prayer  Book  prayers  should  be  used 
in  "social  worship,"  he  wrote.  "If,  in  all  cases  we  adhere  to  the 
strict  literal  sense  (of  Canon  45,  of  1832)  how  can  the  Gospel, 
by  us  be  ever  preached  to  the  heathen?  They  who  have  at- 
tended the  meetings  of  our  General  Board  of  Missions  must 
have  seen  what  common  sense  has  taught  our  Bishops  and 
clergy  respecting  the  occasional  use  (in  the  church  even)  of 
other  prayers  beside  those  in  the  Prayer  Book." 

As  early  as  1820  Bishop  Griswold  had  written  his  English 
correspondent,  Mr.  Pratt,  "The  pertinacity  with  which  so  large 
a  part  of  our  citizens  adhere  to  the  slave-holding  interest  pre- 
cludes the  hope  of  this  country's  soon  becoming  what  it  is  so 
often  and  so  absurdly  called,  a  land  of  freedom."  Yet  in  1842 
at  a  meeting  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  of  Plymouth  County 
he  was  attacked  on  the  ground  that  he  had  lately  received  prop- 
erty from  a  son's  estate  in  Cuba  (presumably,  in  the  minds  of 
the  accusers,  from  the  sale  of  a  plantation  and  slaves).  The 
bishop  contented  himself  with  the  simple  explanation  that  the 
property,  however  acquired,  was  not  his  but  administered  to 
him  by  his  son  in  trust  for  his  brothers  and  sisters  and  their 
children. 

At  the  time  of  making  this  explanation  the  bishop  was 


ALEXANDER  VIETS  GRISWOLD  53 

within  a  year  of  his  own  death,  and  in  deepest  grief  over  the 
death  of  his  youngest  and  greatly  loved  son ;  but  he  did  not  fail 
to  write  to  correct  the  censure  bestowed.  It  was  one  more  evi- 
dence of  that  unwavering  steadiness  of  character  which,  having 
adopted  rules  in  early  life,  caused  him  to  follow  them  not  as 
rules  but,  as  his  biographer  says,  "a  sort  of  living  thing,"  which, 
having  adopted,  "his  life  became  but  their  embodied  spirit." 
These  rules  were  as  follows: 

1.  "Never  to  ask  another  to  do  for  me  what  I  can  as  well 
do  for  myself. 

2.  "When  censured,  or  accused,  to  correct,  not  justify, 
my  error. 

3.  "From  a  child,  in  reading  anything  applicable  to  the 
improvement  of  the  mind,  or  to  the  conduct  of  life,  to  consider 
first  and  chiefly  how  it  may  be  applied  to  myself. 

4.  "In  all  clashing  claims,  where  rights  are  equal,  and  one 
must  yield,  to  do  it  myself. 

5.  "To  have  a  trust  that,  in  all  events  and  exigencies  of 
life,  if  I  strictly  do  my  duty  and  walk  according  to  the  Christian 
rule,  however  I  may  seem  to  suffer,  what  is  really  best  for  me  the 
Lord  will  give." 

That  Bishop  Griswold's  life  was  the  embodiment  of  these 
rules  this  story  may  have  made  clear.  But  if  one  questions  the 
partiality  of  an  over  enthusiastic  biographer,  the  sober  testimony 
of  a  daughter  rings  too  true  to  admit  of  doubt.  During  the 
whole  of  his  episcopate  the  bishop's  house  was  a  home  for  the 
clergy,  and  this  daughter  said  that  she  had  often  been  pained 
to  notice  in  them  things  "not  perfectly  consistent  with  their 
high  and  holy  character  and  office;  that  she  had  never  seen  but 
one,  in  whom  no  such  inconsistency  was  observable,  and  that 
this  was  the  one  whom  she  had  known  longest  and  observed  most 
closely,   her  own  revered  father." 


420^ 


